EX    LIBRIS 

THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    CALIFORNIA 


FROM  THE  FUND 

ESTABLISHED  AT  YALE 

IN  1927  BY 

WILLIAM  H.  CROCKER 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1882 

SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 


i 


UNIVERSITY   SERMONS 


Other  Books  by  the  Same  Author 


THE  creed  of  JESUS  and  OTHER  SERMONS 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  CROSS 


HYMNS  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 
Edited  by  H.  S.  Coffin  and  A.  W.  Vernon 

The  Same  for  Use  in  Baptist  Churches 
Rev.  Charles  W.   Gilkey,    Co-editor 


SOME  CHRISTIAN  CONVICTIONS 


THE  TEN  COMMANDMENTS  WITH  A  CHRIS- 
TIAN APPLICATION  TO  PRESENT 
CONDITIONS 


UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 


By 
HENRY  SLOANE  COFFIN 

Minister  in  the  Madison  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church 
and  Associate  Professor  in  the  Union  Theologi- 
cal Seminary,  New  York  City 


New  Haven:   Yale  Univeksity  Press 

London:   Humphrey  Milford 

Oxford  University  Press 

MDCCCCXIV 


coftright,  1914 
By  Yale  University  Press 


First  published,  April,  1914 
Second  printing,  March,  1918 


To  My  Father 
EDMUND  COFFIN 

Yale  *66 


646532 


1 


PREFACE 

These  sermons  have  been  preached  in 
the  chapels  of  Yale,  Harvard,  Princeton, 
Columbia,  Brown,  New  York  and  Chicago 
Universities,  and  of  Williams,  Dartmouth, 
Wellesley,  Vassar,  Mt.  Holyoke  and  Bryn 
Mawr  Colleges.  Some  of  them  have  been 
dehvered  at  the  Conferences  of  the  Young 
Men's  and  Young  Women's  Christian 
Associations  at  Northfield  and  Silver  Bay. 
They  are  published  as  they  were  spoken; 
and  they  are  necessarily  colloquial.  They 
were  preached  to  congregations  of  students 
having  similar  needs;  and  the  same  ideas 
recur  in  them  frequently.  The  only  reason 
for  their  publication  is  the  desire  that  has 
been  expressed  to  possess  them  in  printed 
form,  and  to  be  able  to  pass  them  on  to 
others,  whose  religious  wants  they  may 
possibly  help  to  bring  to  the  only  Source 
of  supply. 

December,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. 

Three  Stages  in  Religious  Experience 

1 

II. 

Religious   Prepossessions 

19 

III. 

The  Finality  of  Jesus 

36 

IV. 

Abilities  Suicidally  Used    . 

57 

V. 

The    Claims    of    the    Church    upon 

Christians 

76 

VI. 

Fools  for  a  Purpose 

90 

VII. 

Revelation  by  Concealment 

108 

VIII. 

The  Religious  Faculty 

126 

IX. 

Unexpected  Sympathy 

142 

X. 

The  Christian  Thought  of  God  . 

160 

XI. 

Faith  and  Growing  Knowledge  . 

176 

XII. 

The  Fallacy  of  Origins      . 

192 

XIII. 

The  Reality  of  God  . 

211 

XIV. 

Religion— a  Load  or  a  Lift? 

227 

XV. 

The  Old,  Old  Story  . 

243 

THREE  STAGES  IN  RELIGIOUS 
EXPERIENCE 

Ezekiel  1 : 6,  28.  The  likeness  of  four  living 
creatures.  The  likeness  of  a  man.  The  likeness  of 
the  glory  of  Jehovah. 

In  Ezekiel's  somewhat  fantastic  vision 
there  seems  to  be  a  mingling  of  three  ele- 
ments which  successively  attract  attention. 
We  see  first  the  subhmnan  element;  the 
stormy  wind,  great  cloud,  flashing  flame, 
the  living  creatures  with  their  strange 
forms,  wings  and  wheels,  and  with  move- 
ments comparable  to  a  streak  of  lightning. 
Next,  intermixed  with  all  this  and  becoming 
more  and  more  prominent,  we  see  a  human 
element;  the  living  creatures  have  the  like- 
ness of  a  man,  the  hands  of  a  man  under 
their  wings,  the  face  of  a  man.  Then, 
mingling  with  all  and  at  length  occupying 
our  entire  thought,  is  a  divine  element. 
"The  Spirit  of  life"  controls  the  movements 
of  the  wheels,  the  noise  of  the  wings  of  the 


2  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

creatures  is  like  the  voice  of  the  Almighty, 
and,  as  we  scan  the  human  figure,  there  is 
"brightness  round  about  him."  "As  the 
appearance  of  the  bow  that  is  in  the  cloud 
in  the  day  of  rain,  so  was  the  appearance  of 
the  brightness  round  about.  This  was  the 
appearance  of  the  likeness  of  the  glory  of 
Jehovah.  And  when  I  saw  it,  I  fell  upon 
my  face." 

The  successive  elements  in  Ezekiel's 
vision  suggest  stages  through  which  many 
of  us  pass  in  our  religious  experiences. 
God,  as  we  conceive  of  Him  in  childhood, 
and  perhaps  in  later  life  if  our  rehgious 
ideas  remain  childish,  is  a  mysterious  and 
magical  creature  not  unlike  Ezekiel's  com- 
pound of  wind,  cloud,  flame,  wings,  wheels, 
lightning.  His  face  is  the  face  of  a  man, 
but  His  movements  and  methods  are  like 
those  of  a  benevolent  but  capricious  fairy; 
and  it  is  the  unmanlike  in  Him,  that  in  which 
He  is  utterly  different  from  us,  which 
attracts  our  notice  and  commands  our 
admiration. 

We  were  told  that  the  Bible  was  God's 
Book.  That  meant  to  us  its  unlikeness  to 
all  other  books,  its  freedom  from  any  imper- 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  3 

f ection  or  mistake,  its  accounts  of  wonderful 
happenings  such  as  never  take  place  now- 
adays— angels  talking  with  men,  dreams 
like  Jacob's  or  Joseph's  or  King  Pharaoh's, 
the  parting  waters  of  the  Red  Sea  before 
Moses  and  of  the  Jordan  before  Joshua, 
Elijah  carried  to  heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire, 
the  three  brave  Israelites  unharmed  in  the 
burning  furnace  and  Daniel  untouched  in 
the  lions'  den,  animals  entering  into  the 
affairs  of  men  like  Balaam's  ass  and  Jonah's 
whale.  Its  miraculous  stories  offered  no 
difficulty  to  us ;  they  were  what  we  expected 
in  God's  Book;  without  them  the  Book 
would  not  have  had  its  fascination  for  us, 
nor  would  it  have  impressed  us  as  sufficiently 
wonderful  to  be  divine. 

We  were  told  that  Jesus  was  God's  Son. 
Our  minds  naturally  dwelt  on  His  bright 
home  in  heaven,  unlike  anything  in  the 
world.  His  great  love  in  coming  down  to 
our  earth  and  sharing  human  life,  and  on  the 
extraordinary  events  in  the  Gospel  story — 
the  carolling  angels  at  His  birth,  the  Voice 
that  spoke  to  Him  out  of  heaven,  the 
attacks  of  the  tempter  instantly  repelled, 
the  water  changed  to  wine,  the  winds  and 


4  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

waves  stilled  by  a  word,  the  thousands  fed 
with  one  little  boy's  supper,  the  walking  on 
the  sea,  the  raising  of  the  dead,  His  own 
rising  from  the  grave  and  ascent  into  the 
sky.  These  incidents  not  only  did  not 
trouble  us,  they  were  the  most  interesting 
and  helpful  parts  of  the  narrative.  They 
fitted  in  exactly  with  our  thought  of  what 
God's  Son  would  be  and  do.  God  was  a 
big  fairy  and  naturally  His  Son  would  be 
fairylike.  It  was  far  less  entertaining  for 
us  to  hear  and  much  harder  to  believe  pas- 
sages where  Jesus  appears  to  be  tired  out, 
or  unable  to  perform  a  mighty  work,  or 
ignorant  of  some  future  event. 

We  were  told  to  pray,  and  we  asked  God 
for  anything  it  came  into  our  heads  to  think 
we  wanted.  The  notion  of  a  law-abiding 
universe,  the  idea  that  we  must  cooperate 
with  God  to  answer  prayer,  never  occurred 
to  us.  Augustine  speaks  of  himself  in 
childhood  as  praying  "though  small^  yet 
with  no  small  earnestness  that  I  might  not 
be  beaten  at  school,"  but  it  never  entered  his 
mind  that  the  avoiding  of  the  beating  was 
a  matter  in  which  he  could  materially  assist 
the  Almighty. 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  5 

Our  religious  life  was  on  the  creature 
level  in  that  it  was  predominantly  selfish. 
The  world  exists  for  children,  not  they  for 
the  world. 

All  the  world  I  saw  or  knew 
Seemed  a  complex  Chinese  toy. 
Fashioned  for  a  barefoot  boy. 

It  was  frankly  more  blessed  for  us  to  receive 
than  to  give,  and  our  petitions  were  personal 
pleas  like  the  little  Augustine's,  or  if  our 

Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 

I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep, 

concluded  with  pleas  for  blessings  on  others, 
they  were  those  whose  lives  meant  much  to 
us — parents,  brother,  sister,  nurse,  friends. 
When  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  went  to  Rugby 
he  wrote:  "My  object  will  be  if  possible 
to  form  Christian  men,  for  Christian  boys 
I  can  scarcely  hope  to  make;  I  mean  that 
from  the  natural  imperfect  state  of  boy- 
hood, they  are  not  susceptible  of  Christian 
principles  in  their  full  development,  and  I 
suspect  that  a  low  standard  of  morals  in 
many  respects  must  be  tolerated  amongst 


6  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS  ^ 

them."  He  lived  to  modify  this  opinion; 
but  he  was  correct  in  recognizing  that  much 
of  Jesus'  teaching  finds  nothing  to  take  hold 
on  in  children.  They  can  revere  and  adore 
the  winged  creature,  they  cannot  appreciate 
the  man. 

Inasmuch  as  our  imaginations  were  keen, 
God  seemed  very  real  to  us.  Many  children 
have  shared  the  experience  Faber  describes 
in  "The  God  of  My  Childhood": 

0  God,  who  wert  my  childhood's  love. 
My  boyhood's  pure  delight, 

A  presence  felt  the  livelong  day, 
A  welcome  fear  at  night, — 

At  school  Thou  wert  a  kindly  Face 

Which  I  could  almost  see; 
But  home  and  holyday  appeared 

Somehow  more  full  of  Thee. 

1  could  not  sleep  unless  Thy  Hand 
Were  underneath  my  head, 

That  I  might  kiss  it,  if  I  lay 
Wakeful  upon  my  bed. 

And  quite  alone  I  never  felt — 

I  knew  that  Thou  wert  near, 
A  silence  tingling  in  the  room, 

A  strangely  pleasant  fear. 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  7 

But  the  years  which  immediately  follow 
childhood  are  a  disillusionizing  period.  We 
discover  beneath  the  wings  of  all  our  fairy 
creatures  the  hands  of  a  man.  Santa  Claus 
gives  place  to  affectionate  people,  and 
Christmas  loses  its  mysterious  delight. 
Prayer  proves  to  be  but  the  preliminary 
to  effort,  a  program  we  must  carry  out  with 
God,  and  almost  inevitably  we  pray  less. 
Our  studies  as  we  advance  give  us  a  world 
of  law,  and  we  are  likely  to  lose  the  sense 
of  personal  touch  with  the  Lawgiver. 

The  Bible  becomes  a  book  of  human 
experience.  Its  science,  history,  morals, 
religious  ideas  impress  us  often  as  very 
crude.  We  are  struck  with  the  resemblance 
of  Israel's  religion  at  many  points  to  the 
religions  of  other  peoples.  And  as  for  the 
miraculous  stories,  we  class  them  with  the 
legends  we  have  learned  to  expect  in  all 
early  literature.  Instead  of  being  unlike 
all  other  books,  the  Bible  seems  to  us 
so  entirely  like  many  others,  that  we  lose 
sight  altogether  of  its  uniqueness. 

Jesus  becomes  for  us  frankly  a  man.  We 
admire  His  heroism.  His  broad-mindedness. 
His   loyalty   to   truth.   His   glorious   self- 


8  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

sacrifice;  but  we  also  recognize  what  we 
consider  His  limitations,  the  extent  to  which 
He  shared  the  world-view  of  His  contem- 
poraries, believing  in  to  us  such  unbeliev- 
able beings  as  demons,  and  attributing 
diseases  and  insanity  to  their  sinister 
activity.  The  miraculous  tales  about  Him 
we  either  explain  as  instances  of  the  power 
of  a  superior  mind  over  others,  or  regard 
as  poetic  expressions  of  spiritual  truths. 

Contact  with  fact  has  sobered  and  perhaps 
dulled  our  imagination,  so  that  we  have 
lost  the  sense  we  once  possessed  of  God's 
nearness. 

I  remember,  I  remember 

The  fir  trees,  dark  and  high; 

I  used  to  think  their  slender  tops 
Were  close  against  the  sky 

is  followed  by  the  regretful 

Now  'tis  little  joy 
To  know  I'm  farther  off  from  heaven 
Than  when  I  was  a  boy. 

Thomas  Hood  was  really  sighing  for  a 
passed  fancy,  not  a  passed  faith;  but  since 
faith  must  picture  Him  in  whom  it  believes. 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  9 

the  change  in  the   picture  may   seriously 
shake  the  faith. 

There  are  some  manifest  gains  in  this 
complete  humanizing  of  our  religion.  We 
appreciate  and  try  to  practice  much  of  the 
teaching  of  the  Bible,  particularly  the 
words  of  Jesus,  that  meant  nothing  to  us 
before.  We  enter  with  enthusiasm  into 
Jesus'  hope  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on 
earth,  the  social  order  in  which  men  deal 
justly,  kindly  and  faithfully  with  one 
another,  and  love  is  supreme.  We  discover 
for  ourselves  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive,  and  all  the  earnestness  we 
used  to  put  into  our  prayers  to  God  goes 
into  our  service  of  men.  We  form  strong 
friendships  that  were  quite  impossible  to 
childhood,  and  begin  to  explore  the  height, 
breadth,  depth  and  length  of  love.  Devo- 
tion to  duty,  honesty  in  dealing  with  truth, 
consecration  to  humanity  make  up  our 
religion.  We  are  content  to  accept  the 
statement  of  ^ir  Edward  Burne- Jones: 
"There  is  only  one  religion ;  *Make  the  most 
of  your  best  for  the  sake  of  others'  is  the 
Catholic  Faith,  which  except  a  man  believe 
faithfully  he  cannot  be  saved." 


10  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

In  a  very  real  sense  Jesus  means  more  to 
us  than  He  ever  did.  We  have  exchanged 
a  good  fairy  for  a  human  brother,  tempted 
in  all  points  like  as  we  are.  We  draw  from 
the  biography  of  this  limited  Man,  as  we 
now  consider  Him,  a  sympathy  and  an 
inspiration  we  never  found  there  before. 
We  prefer  to  think  that  He  was  born  as  all 
men  have  been,  had  to  acquire  His  force  of 
will  by  struggle,  had  to  hold  His  hopes  in 
the  face  of  discouragement  and  apparent 
defeat,  had  to  battle  to  keep  His  faith  in 
God. 

But  just  there,  perhaps,  we  part  company 
with  Him;  we  are  not  sure  that  we  have 
faith  in  God.  At  all  events,  we  have  lost 
that  feeling  of  God's  actual  comradeship. 
His  personal  interest  in  and  presence  with 
us,  which  was  so  strong  in  childhood.  If 
there  is  something  we  think  should  be  done, 
we  rely  on  planning  and  not  on  praying.  If 
we  are  tempted,  we  do  not  think  of  Him 
who  can  send  a  guardian  angel  to  defend 
us,  or  stand  Himself  at  our  side  with  flaming 
sword,  but  smnmon  up  our  self-reliance  and 
resolve  to  keep  our  self-respect.  If  we  are 
saddened    and    disappointed,    if   life    goes 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  11 

against  us  and  our  heart  aches,  we  do  not 
run  to  a  mother-like  Deity  to  be  soothed 
and  comforted,  but  rather  say,  with  Henley: 

Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 
Black  as  the  pit  from  pole  to  pole, 

I  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud; 

Under  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

But  have  we  lost  nothing?  We  used  to 
be  genuinely  frightened  as  children  when 
we  were  naughty:  "Thou,  God,  seest  me." 
Now,  provided  nobody  finds  out,  we  are 
not  much  troubled  by  secret  iniquities.  If 
we  had  something  difficult  to  do,  it  was 
strengthening  to  feel  that  an  Almighty 
Partner  helped  us  do  it.  There  was  infinite 
comfort  in  thinking  that  a  great,  kind  Heart 
was  touched  by  aU  our  pains,  that  a  Hand 
reached  down  and  held  us  up  when  we 
stumbled,  that  an  Ear  was  always  open  to 
receive  the  confidences  we  were  too  shy  to 
give  anyone  else,  and  a  Father  up  yonder 


12  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

understood  us  as  nobody  else  could.  When 
we  walked  through  a  dark  place  it  took  the 
lump  out  of  our  throat  to  hear  a  Voice 
whispering,  "Fear  not ;  I  am  with  thee." 

Perhaps  we  find  ourselves  in  circum- 
stances where  we  cannot  help  praying;  and 
when  we  actually  pray,  it  does  not  seem  so 
utterly  unreasonable.  It  is  not  that  we  get 
the  things  we  pray  for  without  effort,  but 
we  have  a  sense  of  getting  Someone  who 
shares  the  effort  with  us.  And  if  we  keep 
reading  this  Book  which  we  regard  as  a 
collection  of  human  literature,  we  discover 
that  there  is  something  in  it  that  inspires  us 
as  no  other  literature.  It  seems  to  appeal 
to  us  at  more  points  of  our  complex  beings, 
to  fit  into  every  conceivable  situation  in 
which  we  happen  to  be,  to  meet  us  at  deeper 
levels  and  to  raise  us  to  greater  heights. 
Whatever  our  theory  of  its  inspiration,  we 
feel  that  this  collection  of  writings  inspires 
us  with  stronger,  wiser,  better  impulses, 
principles,  purposes  than  any  other  book. 

If  we  think  often  enough  of  the  entirely 
human  Jesus,  our  admiration  grows  to 
adoration.  We  find  ourselves  not  applaud- 
ing Him;  we  bow  our  heads  in  reverence. 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  13 

If  we  do  more  than  think  of  Him,  if  we 
honestly  try  to  follow  Him  merely  as  a 
man,  using  His  methods  in  our  dealings 
with  men,  facing  perplexities,  suffering, 
defeat,  with  His  courage  and  hope,  we  find 
ourselves  receiving  from  Him  quite  ines- 
timable inspiration.  We  are  amazed  at  the 
fullness  of  love,  of  patience,  of  bravery, 
there  is  in  Him.  We  wonder  if  His  expla- 
nation of  its  source  may  not  after  all  be 
correct.  Was  there  really  a  God,  the  Father 
whom  He  trusted  so  implicitly  as  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth,  in  fellowship  with  Him? 
If  there  was,  is  there  such  a  God  still?  Is 
not  this  the  most  reasonable  explanation  of 
the  sense  of  companionship  which  we  find 
when  we  are  driven  to  pray? 

And  if  there  be  such  a  Father,  must  He 
not  have  wished  to  speak  with  His  chil- 
dren— must  He  not  have  spoken?  And  are 
not  these  inspirations  which  come  to  us  from 
the  Bible  His  word  through  those  who  best 
understood  Him?  To  be  sure,  that  word 
came  through  entirely  human  experiences, 
through  men  who  were  often  imperfect  and 
mistaken,  but  however  it  came  it  does  inspire 
us  now.     "As  the  appearance  of  the  bow 


14  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

that  is  in  the  cloud  in  the  day  of  rain,"  so 
is  the  appearance  round  about  the  Bible. 
Light  streams  from  it — a  completely  human 
book  with  all  the  defects  inevitable  in  what 
men  do,  but  through  the  human  the  divine, 
the  word  of  God. 

And  if  there  be  such  a  Father,  must  He 
not  have  wished  to  give  His  children  a  cor- 
rect likeness  of  Himself?  When  we  feel 
constrained  to  adore  Jesus,  are  we  idolaters, 
or  is  He  the  expression  of  God  in  a  human 
life?  When  we  draw  on  His  fullness  and 
discover  unsearchable  riches,  is  it  not  because 
in  Him  we  find  the  embodiment  of  God's 
character?  Is  it  not  because  He,  like  God, 
is  love?  We  are  not  looking  for  divinity 
now  in  the  extraordinary  and  unhuman 
things  about  Him,  we  are  finding  His 
humanity  divine.  His  complete  manhood,  in 
which  He  is  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of 
our  flesh.  His  very  Godhood.  Taking  Him 
as  a  man,  and  nothing  more  than  a  man, 
we  are  constrained  to  place  Him  upon  the 
throne  of  our  lives  as  our  ideal,  the  Master 
we  cannot  but  obey.  And  as  we  obey  the 
Man,  there  is  "a  brightness  round  about 
Him."    We  say:    "If  I  ever  worship  a  God, 


I 


I 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  15 

He  must  be  the  duplicate  of  this  Man.  A 
God  unlike  Him  I  refuse  to  worship, 
because  I  know  a  diviner  than  He."  If  we 
accept  Jesus'  own  thought  of  His  Father 
we  find  that  Father's  character  reproduced 
in  Jesus.  This  man  is  "the  appearance  of 
the  likeness  of  the  glory  of  Jehovah";  and 
when  we  see  Him  we  fall  upon  our  faces. 

In  humanizing  our  religion  we  have  not 
lost  our  God.  We  exchanged  a  good  fairy 
for  a  brother,  and  in  the  brother  we  have 
discovered  our  Lord. 

So  I  beheld  my  God,  in  childhood's  morn, 
A  mist,  a  darkness,  great  and  far  apart. 
Moveless  and  dim — I  scarce  could  say.  Thou  art. 
My  manhood  came,  of  joy  and  sadness  born — 
Full  soon  the  misty  dark,  asunder  torn, 
Revealed  man's  glory,  God's  great  human  heart. 

There  is  a  childhood  to  be  outgrown  and 
a  childhood  to  be  grown  up  to.  When  once 
we  have  become  not  orphans,  however  self- 
reliant,  but  trusting  children,  seeing  God 
in  the  human,  in  Jesus,  and  in  aU  that  is 
Jesus-like  in  any  man,  we  are  not  quite  so 
eager  to  label  childish  all  the  extraordinary 
elements  in  the  Bible  and  about  Jesus  that 


16  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

fascinated  our  childhood's  imagination.  We 
lay  no  emphasis  on  them.  We  do  not  say- 
to  any  man,  "You  must  believe  them";  we 
say,  "You  may."  We  resent  the  literalist 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rationalist  on  the 
other,  who  would  reduce  all  the  poetry  of 
religion  to  bald  prose.  The  heart  of  a  little 
child  demands  that  his  faith  shall  have  scope 
for  fancy.  Of  course  we  do  not  see  in 
unusual  occurrences  past  or  present  any- 
thing peculiarly  Godhke,  for  the  regular 
and  ordinary  are  equally  divine ;  nor  can  the 
unhuman  be  diviner  than  the  human,  for  our 
God  has  been  most  fully  disclosed  in  a  Man. 
But  we  discover  that  "human"  is  a  much 
more  expansive  adjective  than  we  had 
thought.  We  come  to  know  men  and  women 
who  do  more  and  better  things  than  the  best 
fairy  we  ever  heard  of.  We  live  with  human 
beings  who  are  as  angels  of  light.  We  are 
not  troubled  with  the  marvellous  in  the  past ; 
our  present  is  too  full  of  startling  surprises ; 
even  if  these  events  of  long  ago  are  not  all 
to  be  taken  as  literal  history,  they  may  con- 
tain elements  of  prophecy;  they  are  symbols 
of  faith  and  hope.  We  are  working  and 
waiting  for  a  day  when  even  Jesus  shall  be 


I 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE  17 


no  longer  unique,  but  when  "God  shall  be 
aU  in  aU." 

Meantime  we  see  our  God  in  Jesus.  We 
cannot  prove  His  deity  to  anybody  who  does 
not  make  Him  God  by  giving  Him  his 
entire  devotion.  And  whoever  does,  needs 
no  proofs.  We  accord  this  human  Brother 
all  our  reverence,  all  our  trust,  all  our  ser- 
vice, and  we  do  not  rob  His  and  our  Father; 
for  He  and  the  Father  are  one  in  purpose. 
We  draw  upon  Him  for  what  God  only 
can  supply,  and  we  are  not  disappointed. 
He  does  all  for  us  God  can  do,  for  the 
Father  touches  us  personally  through  Him 
and  opens  up  His  unsearchable  riches  in 
Him.  We  live  to  make  Him  Lord  over  all, 
assured  that  the  loyalty  yielded  to  Him  is 
yielded  to  the  Father  to  whom  He  gives 
back  the  Kingdom,  and  that  in  Him  all 
men,  as  we,  will  find  the  fullness  of  the  God- 
head bodily.  We  do  not  dehumanize  Him; 
He  is  first  of  all  and  entirely  Man ;  but  that 
does  not  mean  that  He  is  not  also  the  com- 
plete revelation  of  God.  When  we  survey 
the  wondrous  cross  we  see  Man  at  his 
highest ;  and  that  for  us  is  God  at  His  best. 
"This  is  the  appearance  of  the  likeness  of 


18  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

the  glory  of  Jehovah.    And  when  I  saw  it, 
I  fell  upon  my  face." 

Love  so  amazing,  so  divine, 
Demands  my  soul,  my  life,  my  all. 


II 

RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS 

Hebrews  11:6.  He  that  cometh  to  God  must 
believe  that  He  is. 

This  remark  seems  on  the  one  hand  a 
truism.  How  can  a  man  approach  a  God 
who  has  no  real  existence  for  him?  Would 
anyone  think  of  coining  to  God  unless  he 
thought  there  were  such  a  Being?  What  a 
platitude  to  tell  us  that  he  that  cometh  to 
God  must  believe  that  He  is!  And  on  the 
other  hand  it  sounds  harsh  and  forbidding. 
The  most  earnest  believers  have  their 
moments  of  uncertainty.  Ours  is  an  odd 
world,  and  there  are  some  ugly  facts  that 
make  God,  or  at  all  events  the  Christian 
God,  appear  highly  incredible.  Even  so 
staunch  a  man  of  faith  as  Luther  confessed, 
"At  times  I  believe  and  at  times  I  doubt"; 
and  there  is  a  letter  of  Hugh  Latimer  to 
his  fellow-martyr  Ridley,  in  which  he  pleads : 
"Pardon  me  and  pray  for  me;  pray  for  me, 
I  say.    For  I  am  sometimes  so  fearful,  that 


20  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

I  would  creep  into  a  mouse-hole;  sometimes 
God  doth  visit  me  again  with  His  comfort. 
So  He  Cometh  and  goeth."  And  in  the 
hour  when  God  is  gone,  when  the  mind 
oscillates  between  believing  that  He  still 
exists  somewhere  and  believing  that  He  has 
never  come  at  all,  is  there  no  chance  for  the 
heart  to  go  in  search  of  Him  through  clouds 
and  darkness,  if  haply  there  be  a  God  to  feel 
after  and  find?  Is  there  no  place  in  religion 
for  the  prayer,  "O  God,  if  there  be  a  God, 
save  my  soul,  if  I  have  a  soul"  ?  There  is  a 
rigid  exclusiveness  in  the  sentence,  "He  that 
cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is." 
Has  not  our  author  been  too  dogmatic? 

Let  us  see  what  he  means. 

He  does  not  say,  "He  that  cometh  to  God 
must  feel  that  He  is  a  real  Being."  We 
know  what  it  is  to  feel  the  presence  of  some- 
one in  the  room.  We  know  the  sensation 
of  loneliness  when  we  are  by  ourselves;  we 
have  a  different  feeling  when  we  are  aware 
of  the  other's  presence,  even  if  the  room  be 
so  dark  that  we  cannot  see  him  and  he  never 
utters  a  syllable  to  us.  Many,  perhaps  all, 
religious  people  have  times  when  they  sense 
God's  presence  exactly  as  they  sense  the 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         21 

presence  of  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood.  But 
this  vivid  realization  of  the  Unseen  requires 
the  use  of  the  imagination.  Imaginative- 
ness varies  in  different  temperaments,  and 
in  the  same  person  at  different  ages.  Santa 
Claus  and  fairies  are  entirely  real  to  some 
children;  they  can  hear  the  former  up  the 
chimney  and  fancy  the  latter  in  a  park  on 
a  spring  day.  If  in  coming  to  God  we  must 
feel  His  reality  and  fancy  Him  actually 
present,  it  is  much  harder  for  an  adult  to 
come  to  Him  than  for  a  child,  and  as  we 
grow  up  we  grow  away  from  God. 

Further,  such  feelings,  like  all  feelings, 
fluctuate.  They  seldom  move  on  a  level 
plain;  their  course  is  over  mountains  and 
valleys.  The  weather,  our  health,  circum- 
stances take  them  up  or  down,  and  lift  us 
to  heights  where  God  seems  entirely  clear 
and  near,  or  drop  us  to  abysmal  depths 
whence  He  appears  to  be  utterly  excluded. 

And  even  when  we  feel  ourselves  in  touch 
with  God  may  it  not  be  merely  an  imagi- 
nation? And  without  consciousness  of  His 
existence,  may  we  not  be  firmly  in  His  hand, 
living  and  moving  and  having  our  being  in 
Him?    Smugly  self-righteous  people  fancy 


22  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

themselves  God's  intimates  and  speak  of 
blessed  interviews  with  Him  which  are 
entirely  real  to  them;  while  their  acquaint- 
ances are  certain  that,  if  there  be  a  God,  He 
has  singularly  little  influence  for  good  upon 
His  chosen,  if  these  be  His  chosen.  And 
on  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  into  whose 
thoughts  God  never  comes,  who  impress  us 
as  the  sort  of  people  to  whom  a  good  God, 
if  He  exists,  must  be  most  close. 

Faith  and  feeling,  faith  and  fancy,  are 
not  the  same  thing.  Imagination  is  a  vast 
help  to  faith.  Ruskin  said  that  "an  unim- 
aginative person  can  neither  be  reverent 
nor  kind."  He  cannot  be  kind  because  it 
requires  imagination  to  place  oneself  in 
another's  place  and  feel  what  he  feels.  He 
cannot  be  reverent  because  only  he  to  whom 
God  is  vividly  actual  walks  humbly  before 
Him.  Let  faith  fancy,  but  let  us  not 
confuse  the  two. 

Again  our  author  does  not  say,  "He  that 
Cometh  to  God  must  understand  what  He 
is."  There  are  a  few  exceptional  people 
who  reach  God  headfirst.  A  leading 
American  theologian  of  the  last  generation, 
Henry  B.  Smith,  said:    "My  determination 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         23 

to  seek  religion  was  formed  solely  in  conse- 
quence of  my  complete  persuasion  of  its 
reasonableness.  I  did  not  feel  any  need  of 
it."  But  there  are  far  more  who  "stand  at 
the  temple  door  heart  in,  head  out."  They 
may  have  moods  when  the  sense  of  an 
Eternal  Beauty,  of  which  all  lovely  sights 
are  passing  gleams,  entrances  them;  or  when 
the  consciousness  of  a  mighty  and  inscru- 
table Force,  back  of  all  the  energies  active 
in  the  universe,  awes  them;  or  when  a 
wisdom  that  baffles  their  search,  an  Ultimate 
Truth  behind  all  the  broken  fragments  of 
our  unrelated  notions,  tantalizes  their  minds 
to  go  out  and  explore  the  unknown  for  it; 
ir  when  a  Love,  controlling  all  things  for 
good  and  holding  their  lives  in  its  gentle 
embrace,  comes  upon  them  as  a  thought  so 
good  they  cannot  help  wishing  it  true;  but 
as  soon  as  they  begin  to  use  their  intellects, 
and  explain  their  mood  to  themselves,  and 

I  try  to  form  some  image  of  this  Somewhat 
|Dr  Someone  Beautiful,  Mighty,  Wise, 
Loving,  they  can  gain  no  clear  conception; 
the  mood  itself  passes,  and  they  find  them- 
selves in  a  world  alone  with  things  and 
people. 


24  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

It  is  certainly  important  that  believing 
people  should  use  their  brains,  and  the 
clearer  the  conception  we  form  of  the  God 
to  whom  we  are  coming  the  closer  will  we 
get  to  Him,  and  the  more  intelligent  will 
be  our  fellowship.  It  was  a  true  saying  of 
George  Eliot's  that  "the  few  may  find  them- 
selves in  the  religious  life  simply  by  an 
elevation  of  feeling;  but  for  us  who  have 
to  struggle  for  our  wisdom,  the  higher  life 
must  be  a  region  in  which  the  affections  are 
clad  with  knowledge."  It  is  not  enough  for 
us  to  have  a  feeling  of  trust  in  a  Somebody 
altogether  good,  so  that  at  times  a  mood 
steals  over  us  in  which  we  are  uplifted  and 
soothed  and  inspired;  we  have  to  connect 
that  Somebody  with  the  great  universe, 
with  human  history,  with  all  that  is  happen- 
ing about  us  and  with  what  goes  on  in  our 
own  hearts.  And  it  is  in  thinking  out,  or  in 
failing  to  think  out,  these  connections  that 
God  becomes  unreal  to  us. 

But  let  us  not  make  the  mistake  of  trying 
first  to  understand  what  God  is  and  only 
afterwards  coming  to  Him.  We  must  first 
touch  the  shore  and  land,  before  we  can 
explore  the  continent   and  chart   out  the 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         26 

mountains  and  rivers  and  plains.  We  must 
believe  that  He  is,  before  we  can  understand 
what  He  is.  Faith  is  the  John  Baptist  that 
prepares  the  way  for  knowledge.  We  shall 
always  have  to  be  satisfied  with  a  knowledge 
of  God  that  allows  for  a  huge  ignorance 
about  Him.  The  interior  of  that  Continent 
it  will  take  us  all  eternity  to  chart.  But  it 
is  quite  possible  for  Him  to  be  inescapably 
actual  to  us,  an  abiding  Reality,  while  we 
confess,  "Verily,  Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest 
Thyself,  O  God  of  Israel,  the  Saviour." 

What  then  does  our  author  mean  by  faith 
when  he  tells  us  so  dogmatically,  "He  that 
Cometh  to  God  must  beheve  that  He  is"? 
He  begins  this  chapter  with  a  definition: 
"Now  faith  is  the  giving  substance  to  things 
hoped  for,  a  conviction  of  things  not  seen." 
Herbert  Spencer  was  right  when  he  said 
that  "prepossession  is  nine  points  of  belief." 
Religion  starts  in  us  as  a  hope,  a  wish. 
Many  men  are  not  infidels  who  ought  to  be ; 
they  do  not  really  wish  for  a  Christian  God. 
If  this  were  actually  His  world;  if  success 
be  attainable  only  by  doing  His  will,  and 
if  the  only  success  attainable  be  the  kind 
He  Himself  seeks,  they  would  be  very  dis- 


ii^ 


UNnxRsnr  sekmoks 

ami.  aahiffy.    The  jor  of  Ji 
dKsortaf 


G<4aeG<id«irj< 


HeioBfB.    Bat 
ferOeCUBtim 
?    Would  «c 
Him 
Hek 


KtD  Anc  Hk 
■s.His1ifl?  Bom 


;  ^  do  alwajs 


and  our 


RELIGI0CS  FREPQgsFSSIOXS        Tl 


Our 


Ife  bope  stated  of 


ment  to  bis 
wiiattliej 

He  does  not 


tD 


for  Hk  God 


fndi  fenola 

iint  iHuit  He  LlElwuI  God  \n  k  to 

God  adnllT  is.     It 

Jobs  of  » 


tlie  oext^iiiily  of 


28  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

such  as  that  "a  part  of  anything  is  less  than 
the  whole,"  while  "the  other  is  when  the 
heart  doth  cleave  and  stick  unto  that  which 
it  doth  believe.  This  certainty  is  greater 
than  the  other.  The  reason  is  this :  the  faith 
of  a  Christian  doth  apprehend  the  words  of 
the  law,  the  promises  of  God,  not  only  as 
true  but  also  as  good;  and  therefore  even 
when  the  evidence  which  he  hath  of  the  truth 
is  so  small  that  it  grieveth  him  to  feel  his 
weakness  in  assenting  thereto,  yet  is  there 
in  him  such  a  sure  adherence  unto  that  which 
he  doth  but  faintly  and  fearfully  believe, 
that  his  spirit  having  once  truly  tasted  the 
heavenly  sweetness  thereof,  all  the  world  is 
not  able  quite  and  clean  to  remove  him  from 
it;  but  he  striveth  with  himself  to  hope 
against  all  reason  of  believing.  For  why? 
this  lesson  remaineth  forever  imprinted  in 
him,  *It  is  good  for  me  to  cleave  unto  God.'  " 
When  a  man  comes  to  know  Jesus  Christ, 
he  is  so  mastered  by  Him,  that  he  is  forced 
to  declare  that  it  would  be  the  best  imagin- 
able thing  for  himself  and  for  all  men,  if 
the  faith  of  Jesus  were  justified,  if  His 
purpose  for  the  world  were  achievable,  if 
the  God  in  whom  He  trusted  to  bring  His 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         29 

purpose  to  pass  be  actual.  His  hope  is  so 
compelling  that  despite  all  arguments 
against  its  possibility  he  cannot  but  try  to 
"give  substance"  to  it.  He,  like  Jesus, 
places  himself  in  trustful  sonship  with  the 
mysterious  Someone  who  is  Lord  of  all; 
consecrates  his  whole  heart,  soul,  mind, 
strength,  to  advance  the  kingdom  for  which 
Jesus  hved  and  died;  bears,  believes,  hopes, 
endures  all  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus;  and  so 
tests  whether  the  unseen  contains  what 
Jesus  beheved  it  contained — a  God  the 
duplicate  of  Jesus  Himself  in  character. 

Tests — for  so  far  we  have  been  treating 
faith  as  man's  wish  and  God  as  a  man-made 
picture  to  which  its  creators  hope  there  is  a 
corresponding  actuality.  But  many  people 
today  think  that  our  Idea  of  God  is  the  only 
God  there  is.  Men  have  imagined  a  Being 
perfectly  good,  according  to  their  highest 
standards  of  goodness;  and,  finding  their 
conception  so  comforting  and  exhilarating, 
have  forced  themselves  to  believe  it  a  picture 
of  a  reality,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  there 
is  no  proof  that  such  a  reality  exists.  But 
this  is  to  destroy  religion.  How  long  would 
we  keep  on  worshipping  an  idea  of  God? 


30  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

With  how  much  fervor  would  we  serve  the 
projection  of  our  sublimest  ideal?  Dr. 
Martineau  has  well  said,  "Amid  all  the 
sickly  talk  about  ^ideals'  which  has  become 
the  commonplace  of  our  age,  it  is  well  to 
remember  that,  so  long  as  they  are  dreams 
of  future  possibility  and  not  faiths  in 
present  reahties,  so  long  as  they  are  a  mere 
self -painting  of  the  yearning  spirit,  and  not 
its  personal  surrender  to  immediate  com- 
munion with  an  Infinite  Perfection,  they 
have  no  more  solidity  or  steadiness  than 
floating  air-bubbles,  gay  in  the  sunshine,  and 
broken  in  the  passing  wind.  You  do  not 
so  much  as  touch  the  threshold  of  rehgion, 
so  long  as  you  are  detained  by  the  phantoms 
of  your  thought:  the  very  gate  of  entrance 
to  it,  the  moment  of  its  new  birth,  is  the 
discovery  that  your  gleaming  ideal  is  the 
everlasting  Real,  no  transient  brush  of  a 
fancied  angel  wing,  but  the  abiding  pres- 
ence and  persuasion  of  the  Soul  of  souls." 
They  who  give  substance  to  their  hope 
and  so  test  it,  do  they  come  telling  us  that 
their  hope  is  unsubstantial,  such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  on?  Do  they  find  no 
actuality  in  the  unseen  meeting  and  answer- 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         31 

ing  their  trust?  Does  the  hand  that  reaches 
up  for  comradeship  iii  the  purpose  of  work- 
ing righteousness  feel  about  in  an  empty 
void,  or  is  it  laid  hold  of  and  held  fast? 
"Faith  is  the  giving  substance  to  things 
hoped  for,  a  test,  a  conviction  of  things  not 
seen."  This  Eleventh  Chapter  of  Hebrews 
is  a  roster  of  those  who  gave  substance  to 
their  hope  and  drew  from  the  Invisible  such 
substantial  force  and  wisdom  and  patience 
and  courage,  that  through  faith  they  "sub- 
dued kingdoms,  wrought  righteousness, 
obtained  promises,  stopped  the  mouths  of 
lions,  quenched  the  power  of  fire,  escaped 
the  edge  of  the  sword,  from  weakness  were 
made  strong,  waxed  mighty  in  war,  turned 
to  flight  armies  of  aliens."  The  reality  of 
God  is  for  them  an  inescapable  fact  of 
experience. 

Finding,  following,  keeping,  struggling. 

Is  He  sure  to  bless? 
Saints,  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs 

Answer,  "Yes!" 

He  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that 
He  is  to  the  extent  of  hoping  that  He  is  and 
being  willing  to  give  substance  to  his  hope. 


32  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

You  may  recall  George  Eliot's  description 
of  the  religion  of  the  unfortunate  Hetty  in 
Adam  Bede:  "Religious  doctrines  had 
taken  no  hold  on  Hetty's  mind :  she  was  one 
of  those  numerous  people  who  have  had 
godfathers  and  godmothers,  learned  their 
catechism,  been  confirmed,  and  gone  to 
church  every  Sunday  and  yet  for  any 
practical  result  of  strength  in  life,  or  trust 
in  death,  have  never  appropriated  a  single 
Christian  idea,  or  Christian  feeling."  The 
unreality  of  God  to  many  of  us  nominal 
Christians  is  due  to  our  failure  to  appro- 
priate that  which  we  say  we  think  we 
possess  in  Him.  We  never  give  substance 
to  our  hopes.  We  never  venture  out  for 
righteousness'  sake  regardless  of  conse- 
quences in  the  assurance  that  God  is  our 
Shield,  our  High  Tower,  our  Deliverer. 
We  never  take  our  most  real  faults  and 
weaknesses  to  Him  in  the  confident  expec- 
tation that  He  will  rid  us  of  our  iniquities 
and  make  His  strength  perfect  in  our  weak- 
ness. We  do  not  turn  to  Him  in  our 
perplexities  and,  spreading  out  our  tangled 
and  bewildered  thoughts  before  Him,  let 
the  light  of  His  face  shine  full  on  them  to 


I 


I 


r 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         33 

show  us  the  way  out.  We  do  not  let  God 
be  God  to  us;  and  then  we  bemoan  His 
unreality!  "0  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord 
is  good:  blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in 
Him." 

And  yet  this  is  not  quite  all.  There  have 
been  men  who  were  willing  to  give  sub- 
stance to  their  hope,  to  whom  there  seemed 
to  come  nothing  when  they  reached  up  for 
God.  Augustine  confesses:  "In  my 
thoughts  of  Thee,  Thou  wert  not  any  solid 
or  substantial  thing  to  me.  For  Thou 
wert  not  Thyself,  but  a  phantasm.  If  I 
attempted  to  discharge  my  burden  thereon, 
that  it  might  find  rest,  it  sank  into  empti- 
ness, and  came  rushing  down  again  upon 
me,  and  I  remained  to  myself  an  unhappy 
spot,  where  I  could  neither  stay  nor  depart 
from."  Many  others  to  whom  God  has 
been  at  times  an  undeniable  reahty  go 
through  seasons  when  all  sense  of  His 
existence  leaves  them,  when  He  seems 
totally  intangible.  Have  we  not  all  passed 
over  considerable  stretches  of  life  in  which 
we  were  haunted  by  this  feeling  of  the 
unreality  of  that  which  before  had  been  our 
dominant  conviction?     If  to  come  to  God 


34  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

we  must  believe  that  He  is,  it  seems  to 
require  of  us  an  heroic  act  of  make-beheve. 
Happily  at  this  lowest  level  we  are  met 
by  One  who  assures  us  of  His  entire 
familiarity  with  our  experience  and  has 
Himself  been  in  our  phght.  "My  God, 
My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?" 
the  cry  goes  up  from  Him  to  whom  usually 
God  was  most  actual.  And  in  the  very 
words  He  utters  He  shows  us  not  only  His 
complete  understanding  of  our  case  but  the 
way  out  from  this  sense  of  the  unreality  of 
God.  Even  in  His  abandonment  Jesus 
still  hopes  for  God,  and  hopes  enough  to 
go  directly  to  God  as  though  He  were  and 
plead,  "My  God."  So  many  of  us  think  to 
ourselves  or  talk  to  others  about  God's 
unreality  without  going  straight  to  God 
Himself  and  asking  Him  why  He  fails  us. 
Real  rehgion  consists  not  in  thinking  about 
God  but  in  dealing  personally  with  Him. 
Fenelon,  the  great  French  preacher,  dared 
to  write  a  correspondent,  "If  God  bores  you, 
tell  Him  that  He  bores  you."  Jesus  has 
that  certainty  of  adherence  that  makes  it 
impossible  for  Him  to  give  God  up,  even 
when  He  feels  that  God  has  given  Him  up. 


RELIGIOUS  PREPOSSESSIONS         35 

He  cannot  but  cleave  to  a  God  who  is  too 
good  a  hope  to  Him  to  be  considered  an 
illusion.  "My  God,  My  God!" — and  as 
Jesus  gave  substance  to  His  unconquerable 
hope,  He  tested  and  obtained  a  conviction 
of  things  not  seen.  He  endured  as  seeing 
Him  who  is  invisible.  From  the  seemingly 
empty  space  there  came  to  Him  that  which 
transformed  this  defeated  and  dying  Man 
into  the  world's  most  living  Personality, 
which  rendered  this  God-forsaken  but  God- 
seeking  Believer  the  Author  and  Perfecter 
of  the  faith  of  ten  thousand  times  ten  thou- 
sand out  of  every  kindred  and  tribe  and 
tongue  and  nation  who  through  Him  are 
believers  in  God  and  are  more  and  more 
subduing  the  world  into  His  Kingdom. 


Ill 

THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS 

Revelation  22: 13.    I  am  the  Omega. 

The  book  in  which  these  words  are 
ascribed  to  Jesus  was  written  by  a  Jew  of 
the  Jews,  whose  mind  was  saturated  with 
the  thought  and  literature  of  his  people,  to 
whom  the  religion  of  his  race,  belief  in  one 
righteous  God,  was  a  passion,  and  the 
ascription  of  divinity  to  any  other  than  the 
one  God  abhorrent  blasphemy;  but  such  is 
the  impression  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  made 
upon  him,  that  he  places  Him  side  by  side 
with  God  on  the  throne,  and  puts  upon  His 
lips  the  identical  words  (taken  from  an  Old 
Testament  Scripture),  which  he  puts  upon 
the  lips  of  God:  "I  am  the  Omega,  the 
Last,  the  End."  This  Jew  voiced  the 
conviction  of  primitive  Christendom,  the 
conviction  of  those  who  stood  closest  to 
Jesus  Himself,  and  became  His  most  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic  interpreters.  And  he 
expresses  the  faith  of  all  of  us  who,  since 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  37 

his  time,  and  today,  have  come  under  the 
redeeming  control  of  the  personaHty  of 
Jesus.  The  Jesus  we  obey,  love  and  wor- 
ship is  for  us  final.  Our  consciences,  our 
spiritual  experiences,  hear  Him  asserting, 
"I  am  the  Omega." 

On  what  does  our  conviction  rest? 

1.  Jesus  is  for  us*  the  complete  revelation 
of  the  character  of  God.  He  reveals  God 
in  two  ways,  through  what  God  was  to  Him, 
and  through  what  He  Himself  was. 

(1)  Through  what  God  was  to  Him. 
No  one  can  come  near  the  Jesus  of  history 
without  feeling  that  He  is  in  closest  touch 
with  the  God  of  His  race,  whom  He  habit- 
ually thinks  of  as  "Father,  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth";  with  whom  He  is  on  terms  of 
affectionate  intimacy,  and  to  whom  He 
speaks  with  adoring  reverence,  "Hallowed 
be  Thy  name!"  We  constantly  catch  from 
His  lips  expressions  which  show  that  He 
is  thinking  of  this  unseen  Companion's 
attitude  towards  people,  and  letting  that 
attitude  determine  His  own.  "He  is  kind 
to  the  unthankful  and  the  evil";  the  peace- 
makers are  the  children  who  most  resemble 
their  divine  Father ;  He  cares  for  the  incom- 


38  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

petent,  "the  little  ones,"  "the  lost,"  "the 
least";  He  forgives  every  son  who  returns 
to  Him,  but  only  sons  who  as  freely  forgive 
their  brothers  can  receive  His  forgiveness. 
Jesus  abides  in  His  Father's  love,  does  what 
He  sees  His  Father  doing,  works  as  His 
Father  has  been  and  still  is  working,  feels 
that  the  Father  in  closest  partnership  with 
Him  doeth  His  works. 

There  have  been,  and  there  are  today, 
other  men  to  whom  God  is  a  most  real  and 
a  most  dear  Being.  They  look  to  Him  for 
guidance,  count  on  His  assistance  in  every 
right  endeavor,  bring  their  sins  to  Him  for 
forgiveness,  rest  in  Him  for  comfort  and 
hope,  enhst  in  His  purpose,  and  feel  them- 
selves strong  in  His  strength.  But  we  know 
of  no  other  in  all  history  to  whom  God  has 
been  exactly  what  He  was  to  this  Son.  We 
speak  of  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  see  in 
that  patriarch  a  noteworthy  pioneer  in  the 
religious  life  of  mankind;  of  the  God  of 
Moses,  and  feel  that  this  revered  lawgiver 
and  his  successors  saw  deeply  into  the  will 
of  the  Most  High  for  the  national  life  of 
their  people;  of  the  God  of  the  prophets, 
and  acknowledge  that  these  inspired  preach- 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  39 

ers  of  righteousness  penetrated  far  into  the 
secrets  of  the  Spirit,  and  brought  from  their 
explorations  priceless  discoveries  of  the 
justice,  kindness-  and  faithfulness  of  Jeho- 
vah; of  the  God  of  the  psalmists,  and 
ascribe  to  the  sweet  singers  of  Israel  a 
conmiunion  with  the  King  of  glory,  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  the  Shepherd  of  Israel,  their 
refuge  and  strength,  their  light  and  exceed- 
ing joy,  their  high  tower  and  fortress,  their 
dwelling-place  in  all  generations,  which 
enables  them  to  voice  the  thirst  of  our  souls 
for  the  living  God,  and,  to  a  large  extent, 
to  express  the  satisfaction  of  that  thirst  in 
language  we  shall  never  wholly  outgrow. 
And  outside  the  boundaries  of  Israel  we 
recognize  that  there  have  been  many  elect 
spirits  who  have  been  guides  and  inspira- 
tions to  their  fellows  in  their  quest  for  the 
Lord  and  Deliverer  and  Comrade  of  their 
souls.  We  would  not  disparage  a  Buddha, 
a  Confucius,  a  Socrates,  a  Mohammed,  or 
any  other  to  whose  conscience  righteousness 
was  precious,  and  to  whose  soul  the  unseen 
was  not  void.  But  the  God  and  Father  of 
Jesus  is  for  us  a  distinctive  conception, 
which  eclipses  them  all,  which  satisfies  our 


40  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

religious  aspirations  as  no  one  of  the  others, 
and  which  appears  to  include  all  that  is  of 
worth  in  them.  When  we  wish  to  find  God 
and  enter  into  friendship  with  Him,  we  go 
not  to  a  number  of  teachers,  getting  what- 
ever we  can  from  each  and  combining  it  all 
into  a  universal  religion  of  our  own  com- 
pilation; but  we  go  to  One,  feeling  that  He 
sums  up  all  that  we  need  in  our  thought  of 
God,  saying,  "Lord,  Thou .  knowest  the 
Father,  and  we  would  learn  of  Thee."  It 
may  seem  ungracious  in  us  to  say  to  repre- 
sentatives of  other  faiths,  "We  have  really 
nothing  to  learn  of  you."  It  is  well  for  us 
to  study  every  sincere  conviction  of  any 
man,  weU  for  us  to  listen  respectfully  while 
he  tells  us  what  his  faith  means  for  him  and 
his  fellow  believers;  but  we  cannot  admit 
that  he  has  anything  needed  to  supplement 
the  religion  of  Jesus.  "No  man  knoweth  the 
Father  save  the  Son."  "I  am  the  Omega." 
(2)  NTor  is  this  all.  We  Christians, 
starting  with  the  God  of  Jesus,  the  God  to 
whom  He  prayed,  and  whom  He  trusted, 
obeyed,  loved,  adored,  find  that  God  dis- 
closed in  Jesus  Himself.  To  quote  the 
words  of  a  cultured  woman,  a  Jewess  by 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  41 


birth,  spoken  with  great  earnestness  a  few 
weeks  ago :  "I  have  become  convinced  that 
there  is  nothing  I  can  think  of  in  the  charac- 
ter of  God,  which  I  do  not  find  in  Jesus; 
and  nothing  that  I  want  a  God  for,  which 
Jesus  does  not  do  for  me." 

It  is  easy  to  spin  with  our  thought  a 
philosophical  conception  of  God  as  the 
absolute,  infinite,  omnipotent,  omniscient, 
omnipresent,  and  so  on,  and,  failing  to  see 
the  fulfillment  of  these  speculative  concep- 
tions in  the  historic  Jesus,  deny  His  deity. 
No  one  claims  that  Jesus  was  the  complete 
revelation  of  the  intellect  of  God,  or  of  His 
aesthetic  nature,  or  of  His  multitudinous 
relations  with  the  universe.  But  when  we 
come  to  character,  to  what  God  really  is, 
if  we  agree  with  Jesus  that  God  is  long- 
suffering,  forgiving,  redeeming,  self -giving 
love,  there  is  nothing  we  can  think  of  in  God 
that  we  do  not  possess  in  Jesus.  We  say  to 
Him,  as  the  psalmist  to  Jehovah:  "Thou  art 
my  Lord,  I  have  no  good  beyond  Thee." 
We  look  at  Jesus  in  all  His  relations  with 
men,  and  supremely  when  He  hangs  on 
the  cross,  and  we  are  compelled  to  confess, 
"Behold  our  God!    That  is  what  we  mean 


42  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

by  the  word,  'God.'  "  In  Jesus  dwelleth  all 
the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  What 
more  can  there  be? 

Thou,  O  Christ,  art  all  I  want; 
More  than  all  in  Thee  I  find. 

In  the  unveiling  of  the  character,  the 
purpose,  the  heart,  the  will  of  Him,  whom 
we  adore  as  God  over  all,  Jesus  is  the 
Omega. 

2.  He  is  the  complete  revelation  of  man's 
life  with  God  and  with  his  fellow  men,  which 
are  not  two  things,  but  one,  for,  according 
to  Jesus,  no  man  is  rightly  adjusted  to  God 
who  is  not  rightly  adjusted  to  his  brother. 

Jesus  is  not  for  us  a  heavenly  Being 
masquerading  on  earth  in  human  disguise. 
If  He  is  absolutely  one  with  God  in  purpose, 
heart  of  His  heart  and  life  of  His  life.  He  is 
as  entirely  one  with  us,  bone  of  our  bone  and 
flesh  of  our  flesh,  "made  in  all  points  like 
unto  His  brethren."  He  is  limited  in 
knowledge  and  limited  in  power.  There  are 
many  things  which  He  does  not  know,  many 
things  which  He  cannot  do.  He  is  a  man 
of  His  age,  the  first  century,  with  the  world- 
view  and  science,  and  even  much  of  the 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  43 

theology,  of  His  contemporaries,  believing, 
for  instance,  that  certain  types  of  disease 
were  due  to  demons,  as  was  commonly 
believed  in  that  day.  He  is  a  man  of  His 
race,  a  Jew,  with  the  inheritance  and  lan- 
guage and  forms  of  thought  and  intense 
patriotism  of  His  people.  He  is  a  Galilean 
village  carpenter,  and  His  culture  and  train- 
ing and  connections  are  those  of  His  class 
and  position.  Spiritually  He  is  akin  to  us, 
with  no  immunities  from  pain  and  evil  which 
we  do  not  possess,  "tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are,"  now  elated,  now  depressed, 
now  conscious  of  God's  presence,  now  feel- 
ing Himself  utterly  forsaken.  He  is  our 
Brother. 

But  this  human,  limited,  uncultured, 
tempted  Man  has  been  looked  up  to  for 
these  nineteen  centuries  as  the  ideal  which 
forever  baffles  approximation,  as  the  embod- 
iment of  the  spirit  which  every  right-minded 
man  covets  for  himself  and  seems  never  able 
altogether  to  attain.  Mr.  Higginson  reports 
an  interesting  conversation  between  Emer- 
son and  Whittier.  The  former  had  re- 
marked that  the  world  had  not  yet  seen  the 
highest  development  of  manhood. 


44  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

"Does  thee  think  so?"  said  Whittier.  "I 
suppose  thee  would  admit  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  highest  development  our  world  has 
seen?" 

"Yes,  yes,  but  not  the  highest  it  will  see." 

"Does  thee  think  the  world  has  yet 
reached  the  ideals  the  Christ  has  set  for 
mankind?" 

"No,  no,  I  think  not." 

"Then  is  it  not  the  part  of  wisdom  to  be 
content  with  what  has  been  given  us,  till  we 
have  lived  up  to  that  ideal?  And  when  we 
need  something  higher,  Infinite  Wisdom 
will  supply  our  needs."  That  is  a  cautious 
statement  that  in  manhood  Jesus  is  the 
Omega  so  far. 

And  in  a  world  which  we  have  come  to 
think  of  as  in  process  of  evolution  morally, 
each  age  surpassing  its  predecessor  in  its 
standards  of  duty,  its  conceptions  of  man's 
obligations  to  man  in  home  and  industry  and 
commerce  and  government,  its  charities  and 
sympathies,  is  it  not  a  marvel  that  for  all 
these  growing  centuries  one  Figure  should 
tower  aloft  like  a  giant  Alp,  in  comparison 
with  whom  the  loftiest  seem  but  foothills? 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  45 

You  remember  Sidney  Lanier's  exquisite 
lines  to  the  race's  prophetic  poets : 

Ye  companies  of  governor-spirits  grave. 
Bards,  and  old  bringers-down  of  flaming  news 
From  steep-wall'd  heavens,  holy  malcontents, 
Sweet  seers,  and  stellar  visionaries,  all 
That  brood  about  the  skies  of  poesy. 
Full  bright  ye  shine,  insuperable  stars; 
Yet,  if  a  man  look  hard  upon  you,  none 
With  total  lustre  blazeth,  no,  not  one 
But  hath  some  heinous  freckle  of  the  flesh 
Upon  his  shining  cheek,  not  one  but  winks 
His  ray,  opaqued  with  intermittent  mist 
Of  defect;  yea,  you  masters  all  must  ask 
Some  sweet  forgiveness,  which  we  leap  to  give. 

And  then  he  runs  over  a  list  of  earth's 
famous  teachers,  pointing  out  some  imper- 
fection in  each,  and  at  length  turns  from 
them  all  and  concludes: 

But  Thee,  but  Thee,  O  sovereign  Seer  of  time, 
But  Thee,  O  poets'  Poet,  Wisdom's  Tongue, 
But  Thee,  O  man's  best  Man,  O  love's  best  Love, 
O  perfect  life  in  perfect  labor  writ, 
O  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King,  or  Priest, — 
What  "if"  or  "yet,"  what  mole,  what  flaw,  what 

lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect, 
What  rumor  tattled  by  an  enemy 


46  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace 
Even  in  torture's  grasp,  or  sleep's,  or  death's, — 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  Thee, 
Jesus,  good  Paragon,  Thou  Crystal  Christ. 

We  have  no  hesitancy  in  going  to  Jesus 
for  the  final  solution  of  any  problem  which 
may  arise  in  connection  with  man's  relations 
to  the  Unseen,  or  with  his  most  practical 
relations  with  his  fellows.  We  do  not  think 
of  Jesus  as  tentative  and  temporary,  as 
affording  us  the  best  guidance  up  to  date, 
but  ultimately  to  be  surpassed  or  super- 
seded. We  take  the  most  complicated 
questions  of  our  age — race  problems,  the 
attitude  of  the  white  man  to  the  yellow  and 
the  brown,  of  the  black  to  the  white,  of 
Gentile  to  Jew  and  of  Jew  to  Gentile; 
industrial  perplexities,  the  legitimacy  of 
competition  as  a  motive  in  business,  the 
relations  of  employer  and  employee,  the 
proportion  of  profits  due  to  capital  and 
labor  respectively,  the  rights  of  the  property 
owner  and  the  rights  of  workers  to  employ- 
ment; political  questions,  free  trade  or 
protection,  more  or  no  battleships,  the 
obligations  of  society  to  the  criminal;  social 
questions,  race-track  gambling — Is  a  horse 


I 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  47 

of  more  value  than  a  man? — ^the  drink 
traffic,  its  regulation  or  prohibition;  the 
social  evil  in  the  narrower  sense,  with  its 
hideous  roll  of  victims  in  every  so-called 
Christian  city,  a  moral  plague  far  more 
loathsome  and  unnecessary  than  the  pesti- 
lences of  the  Middle  Ages  which  our  medical 
men  look  back  on  as  completely  eradicable 
evils; — we  take  them  all  to  Jesus,  certain 
that  His  spirit,  if  seriously  and  conscien- 
tiously apphed  to  them,  will  infalHbly  lead 
to  an  ultimate  solution.  We  do  not  expect 
to  find  our  questions  answered  in  so  many 
words  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  Obviously 
many  of  these  problems  were  not  within  His 
horizon.  And  were  the  answer  thus  given 
us,  we  should  be  dealt  with  as  babies,  not  as 
sons  and  daughters  with  minds  of  our  own, 
who,  once  given  a  principle,  can  be  trusted 
to  think  out  its  application  for  themselves. 
But  the  principle,  the  controlling  spirit  has 
been  given  in  Him,  and  we  are  confident 
that  the  spirit  of  Jesus  is  adequate  to  guide 
us  to  such  a  solution  that,  if  we  obey,  we 
shall  find  the  Kingdom  of  God  coming,  and 
at  length  see  His  will  done  in  earth  as  it  is 
in  heaven.    Jesus  is  the  Omega. 


48  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

3.  But  even  this  is  not  all.  Jesus  is 
more  than  the  complete  revelation  of  the 
character  of  God,  and  of  the  Hfe  of  man 
with  God  and  his  fellows.  Those  who 
attempt  to  sum  up  Christianity  by  quoting 
Jesus'  summary  of  the  Jewish  Law,  "Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord,  thy  God,  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  need 
to  be  reminded  that  He  was  merely  answer- 
ing the  question,  "What  is  the  essence  of 
Judaism?"  not  "What  is  the  sxmi  of  all 
religion?"  Jesus  claimed  to  be  an  inno- 
vator as  well  as  a  fulfiller.  "A  new  com- 
mandment give  I  unto  you,"  an  early 
follower  interprets  Him  as  saying.  "This 
is  My  commandment  that  ye  love  one 
another  even  as  I  have  loved  you."  ''Even 
as  Z" — the  most  important  contribution 
Jesus  made  to  the  world  was  just  Himself. 
Judaism  had  said,  "Ye  shall  be  holy,  for  I 
Jehovah,  your  God,  am  holy";  and  Jesus 
had  repeated  and  interpreted  it,  "Be  ye 
merciful,  even  as  your  Father  is  merciful.'* 
But  how  is  God  holy,  how  is  He  merciful? 
The  Christians  hear  Jesus  answering,  "Even 
as  I."  There  is  His  own  divinity,  and 
further  we   are   at   once   led   to   Calvary. 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  49 

"Hereby  know  we  love,"  say  the  primitive 
Christians,  "because  He  laid  down  His  life 
for  us." 

And  the  important  thing  is  that  they  are 
compelled  at  once  to  complete  the  sentence 
by  adding:  "And  we  ought  to  lay  down  our 
lives  for  the  brethren."  Had  Jesus  come, 
like  the  Old  Testament  prophets  or  like 
John  the  Baptist,  merely  to  reform  Judaism, 
to  distinguish  the  important  from  the  unim- 
portant elements  in  the  Law,  Christianity 
would  have  been  nothing  distinctive.  Jesus 
would  have  been  a  repetition  and  interpre- 
tation of  Moses,  and  His  movement  a  sect 
of  reformed  Jews.  But  why  is  it  that  a 
religion  which,  up  till  Jesus,  had  been  a 
tribal,  a  national,  a  racial  affair  with  a  few 
proselytes,  and  has  remained  such  ever  since, 
only  with  far  fewer  proselytes  today  than 
in  the  first  century,  suddenly,  after  Jesus, 
becomes  a  world-conquering  power?  The 
only  explanation  is  that  the  personality  of 
Jesus,  and  that  personality  as  disclosed 
supremely  on  the  cross,  had  brought  a  new 
and  well-nigh  irresistible  force.  "I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel,"  wrote  a  Hebrew 
of  Hebrews,  who  had  known  the  highest 


50  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

inspiration  which  the  most  vigorous  and 
earnest  form  of  the  faith  of  his  fathers  could 
furnish,  and  had  found  it  inadequate,  "I 
am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel,  for  it  is  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation,  to  everyone 
that  believeth,  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to 
the  Greek."  So  soon  as  a  man  comes  under 
the  control  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  he  is  pos- 
sessed by  an  overmastering  impulse:  "The 
love  of  Christ  coritraineth  me."  He  is  con- 
scious  of  a  supply  of  energy  adequate  for 
anything:  "I  can  do  all  things  in  Him  that 
strengtheneth  me."  Ask  the  men  and 
women,  who  in  every  Christian  century  have 
been  ready  to  hazard  their  lives  on  mission 
fields,  to  give  themselves  to  the  care  of  the 
sick,  the  leper,  the  victims  of  disease  or  of 
social  wrong — yes,  ask  any  one  of  us  Chris- 
tians here,  what  is  the  most  forceful  inspira- 
tion we  know  of,  and  we  point  with  Paul  to 
a  scene  in  the  past,  where  outside  a  city  wall 
a  dearly  loving  and  now  dearly  loved  Man 
is  nailed  to  a  cross.  We  say  that  in  Him 
we  see  unveiled  the  very  heart  of  Him,  of 
whom  and  through  whom  and  unto  whom 
are  all  things,  and  are  moved  to  live  no 
longer  unto  ourselves,  but  unto  Him  who 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  61 

for  our  sakes  died,  and  has  risen  again,  and 
is  the  present  controlling  power  in  us.  A 
well-known  British  journalist  watched  the 
Passion  Play  at  Oberammergau  and  came 
away  saying  to  himself:  "This  is  the  story 
that  has  transformed  the  world,"  and  he 
seemed  to  hear  an  echo,  "Yes,  and  will 
transform  it." 

Jesus  is  not  merely  Revealer  to  us,  but 
Redeemer;  not  only  the  unveiling  of  the 
ideal  for  ourselves  and  for  all  men,  but  the 
inspiration  to  achieve  it.  It  is  because  we 
have  discovered  in  Him  the  mightiest  force 
of  which  we  are  aware,  a  force  whose 
potencies  we  never  seem  to  exhaust,  that 
we  are  driven  to  confess  that  He  is  the 
Omega. 

Were  Jesus  any  less  to  us  than  final  He 
could  not  enlist  all  our  loyalty  and  command 
our  entire  consecration.  But  we  feel  that 
there  is  no  possible  limit  to  the  devotion  we 
owe  Him. 

Had  I  a  thousand  hearts  to  give. 
Lord,  they  should  all  be  Thine. 

He  draws  from  us  all  the  reverence,  all 
the  confidence,  all  the  adoration,  all  the  self- 


52  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

dedication  of  which  we  are  capable.  We 
have  no  more  for  God  Himself,  and  there- 
fore Jesus  is  for  us  God,  the  embodiment 
of  God's  character  and  the  transmitter  of 
God's  life.  In  harmony  with  Jesus  we  feel 
that  there  remains  no  further  attainment; 
we  are  at  one  with  the  purpose  of  Him, 
whose  are  sun  and  moon  and  stars  of  light. 
If  it  be  idolatry  to  worship  any  but  God 
alone,  we  are  either  idolaters  or  Jesus  is  for 
us  as  God.  Because  He  claims  and  gains 
our  utmost,  we  cannot  but  call  Him  "The 
Omega." 

Feeling  thus  towards  Jesus,  is  it  possible 
for  us  to  imagine  for  a  moment  that  we  are 
acting  as  brothers  towards  any  man,  how- 
ever good,  who  lacks  this  experience  of  the 
power  of  Christ,  if  we  do  not  seek  to  impart 
it  to  him?  In  a  recent  controversy  over  the 
use  of  Christian  hymns  in  the  public  schools, 
a  prominent  Jewish  paper  said  in  an 
editorial,  "Scratch  a  Christian  anywhere 
and  you  find  a  missionary."  That  is  inevi- 
table. Scratch  a  man  without  finding  in 
him  a  missionary,  and  you  can  be  certain 
that  you  have  not  found  a  Christian.  If  the 
best  of  men  who  does  not  share  our  faith  in 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  53 

Jesus  points  to  a  noble  religious  creed  and 
a  high  standard  of  conduct,  and  asks,  "What 
would  you  convert  me  to?"  we  answer  with- 
out hesitation,  "To  Jesus  Christ:  to  the 
authority  of  His  religious  experience,  to 
God  as  revealed  in  Him,  to  the  transform- 
ing power  of  obedience  to  His  spirit,  to 
unreserved  consecration  to  His  purpose." 
If  a  man  pleads  that  his  religion  is  bound 
up  with  his  very  being,  that  to  forsake  it 
wiU  upset  his  entire  life,  tear  him  up  from 
the  roots,  as  the  Brahman  does  in  India, 
as  the  Jew  with  us,  we  can  only  answer: 
"There  cannot  be  Greek  and  Jew,  cir- 
cumcision and  uncircumcision,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bondman,  freeman;  but  Christ  is 
all  and  in  all."  "He  that  loveth  caste  or 
race,  father  or  mother,  son  or  daughter,  yea, 
his  own  life,  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of 
Me.    I  am  the  Omega." 

Let  us  not  be  unjust  or  ungenerous  to  any 
man.  Let  us  gladly  acknowledge  that  the 
Spirit  of  God,  which  is  for  us  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus,  controls  many  who  have  no  con- 
viction of  Jesus'  finality,  and  no  sense  of 
personal  loyalty  to  Him.  Let  us  rejoice 
in  all  that  makes  for  righteousness  and  see 


54  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

in  its  workers  allies  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Jesus  had  no  sympathy  with  the  dis- 
ciples who  saw  one  casting  out  a  demon  and 
forbade  him  because  he  was  not  a  fellow 
follower  with  them.  "Forbid  him  not:  for 
he  that  is  not  against  us,  is  for  us." 

At  the  same  time  let  us  not  minimize  what 
the  best  and  most  useful  of  men  without 
personal  attachment  to  Jesus  lacks.  There 
is  a  world  of  difference  between  Saul  of 
Tarsus  as  a  disciple  of  one  of  the  broadest 
and  most  spiritual  of  non-Christian  teachers, 
and  Paul  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
has  a  new  light — "the  light  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ";  a  new  power — "I  labor,  striving 
according  to  His  working,  which  worketh  in 
me  mightily";  a  new  peace — "the  peace  of 
God,  which  passeth  all  understanding," 
guards  his  "heart  and  thoughts  in  Christ 
Jesus";  a  new  joy — "Most  gladly  will  I 
rather  glory  in  my  infirmities,  that  the  power 
of  Christ  may  rest  upon  me.  I  take  pleasure 
in  weaknesses,  in  injuries,  in  necessities,  in 
persecutions,  in  distresses  for  Christ's  sake: 
for  when  I  am  weak  then  am  I  strong"; 
a    new    inextinguishable    and    triumphant 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  55 

hope — "Who  shall  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  Christ?  shall  tribulation,  or  anguish, 
or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or 
peril,  or  sword?  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we 
are  more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that 
loved  us."  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  one  of  the 
most  conscientious  and  earnest  of  men,  while 
he  lived  by  the  highest  standards  the  faith 
of  his  fathers  had  to  offer;  and  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  the  forces  latent  in  that  faith 
alone  could  have  transformed  him,  impos- 
sible to  see  how  they  could  have  made  him 
the  man  he  became.  "But  if  any  man  is 
in  Christ,"  no  matter  how  excellent  before, 
"there  is  a  new  creation";  and  the  new 
creation  justifies  his  and  our  faith  in  the 
finality  of  the  new  Creator.  "I  am  the 
Omega." 

Gentlemen,  is  Jesus  actually  final  for 
you  and  me?  Do  we  bring  our  questions  of 
right  and  wrong,  expedient  and  inexpedient, 
thoughtfully  to  Him,  and  let  His  Spirit 
control  our  decisions?  Do  we  turn  to  Him 
as  the  all-sufficient  source  of  strength  with 
which  to  confront  life's  ordeals,  shoulder  its 
responsibilities,  triumph  in  its  sorrows,  and 
fight  through  its  battle?     Do  we  place  at 


56  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

His  disposal  all  that  in  us  is,  even  to 
the  very  last  particle  of  our  ability,  our 
resources,  our  energy,  our  love?  Are  we 
prepared  to  do  our  utmost  to  make  Him 
Lord  of  all,  even  of  the  last  man  in  the 
ultimate  spot  on  God's  earth? 
'^  "Why  call  ye  Me,  Lord,  Lord,  and  do 
not  the  things  which  I  say?" 


IV 

ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED 

1  Samuel  81:4.  Saul  took  his  sword,  and  feU 
upon  it. 

This  act  was  typical  of  Saul's  entire 
career.  He  was  constantly  taking  the 
weapons  placed  in  his  hand  for  service  and 
using  them  to  destroy  himself. 

He  is  Samuel's  choice  for  the  kingship, 
and  from  that  eventful  night  when  the  old 
prophet  talked  to  him  on  the  housetop, 
Samuel  was  prepared  to  stand  by  him  as  his 
trusted  counsellor  and  vigorous  supporter. 
Saul  had  the  chance  to  disabuse  the  old  man 
tactfully  of  any  prejudices  he  had  against 
the  new  regime,  and  through  him  to  gain 
the  hearty  adherence  of  the  more  religious 
element  among  the  people  who  reverenced 
their  old  leader;  but  in  a  very  little  while  he 
alienates  Samuel's  sympathy  and  forces 
him  to  denounce  him.  A  son  is  given  him 
whose  prowess  in  battle  and  popularity 
with  the  people  render  him  a  great  source 
of  strength  to  the  supremacy  of  his  royal 


58  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

house.  What  more  desirable  heir  apparent 
could  a  king  ask  than  Jonathan?  But  when 
he  unintentionally  breaks  a  command  of  his 
father's  at  Beth-aven,  Saul  would  have  put 
him  to  death,  had  not  public  sentiment 
compelled  him  to  revoke  his  sentence. 
David  is  brought  to  his  court  and  attaches 
himself  to  the  king  with  warm  affection  and 
loyalty.  With  his  abilities  as  a  warrior  and 
leader,  and  his  growing  reputation,  what  an 
addition  he  is  to  Saul's  strength.  But  the 
king  jealously  quarrels  with  him  and  drives 
him  into  exile ;  and,  despite  David's  repeated 
attempts  at  reconciliation,  he  refuses  to 
take  him  back.  The  kingship  itself  was  his 
glorious  opportunity  to  become  the  first 
monarch  of  a  mighty  line  and  leave  a  per- 
manent impress  upon  the  life  of  the  nation; 
but  he  could  not  stand  power,  and  his 
exalted  station  proves  his  undoing,  and  sets 
him  in  the  list  of  the  world's  conspicuous 
failures.  It  seems  as  though  God  had  again 
and  again  placed  in  his  grasp  a  sword  with 
which  to  win  a  victory  and  each  time  he  had 
turned  its  point  against  himself  and  fallen 
on  it.  It  is  a  true  description  of  his  career 
to  say  that  he  killed  himself. 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        59 

And  Saul's  experience  is  unhappily  so 
common.  Education  is  one  of  the  most 
effective  equipments  for  service.  A  trained 
mind  is  a  sword  worth  years  of  patient 
grinding  to  acquire  and  constant  sharpening 
to  keep  in  readiness  for  instant  use.  When 
one  reads  the  heroic  struggles  of  poor  boys 
to  get  any  sort  of  schooling  and  their  enor- 
mous sacrifices  to  purchase  books,  one  won- 
ders why  many  of  us  hold  so  lightly  the 
advantages  offered  us  and  do  such  pitiably 
little  reading  that  adds  anything  to  our 
mental  enrichment.  But  education  some- 
times seems  to  give  people  something  which 
they  not  only  do  not  use,  but  which  actually 
is  in  the  way  of  their  usefulness,  like  a 
great  unwieldy  sword  over  which  they 
constantly  trip  and  fall.  We  have  present- 
day  analogies  to  Pope's 

Bookful  blockhead,  ignorantly  read 
With  loads  of  learned  lumber  in  his  head. 

Education  ought  to  render  its  possessors 
eager  to  place  their  skilled  intellects  at  the 
service  of  their  less  endowed  brothers,  but 
too  often  college  graduates  use  their  train- 
ing solely  to  help  them  to  selfish  successes 


60  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

in  profession  or  business,  or  for  their  own 
amusement  as  dilettantes.  Public  spirit  is 
by  no  means  the  invariable  characteristic  of 
college  men  and  women.  Their  acquisitions 
are  implements  to  gratify  personal  ambi- 
tion or  to  minister  to  self-indulgence,  for  it 
is  quite  as  possible  to  indulge  and  pamper 
the  mind  as  the  body.  And  education  often 
estranges  men  from  their  less  fortunate 
fellows.  Their  own  cleverness  makes  them 
intolerant  and  scornful  of  stupidity  and 
dullness.  Their  bookish  point  of  view  puts 
them  out  of  sympathy  with  plain  people 
whose  entire  library  is  the  book  of  common 
life.  Seldom  do  we  find  an  educated  man, 
however  much  he  may  wish  to,  who  can 
see  things  with  the  eyes  and  thoughts  of 
the  uncultivated,  speak  out  his  mind  and 
heart  in  language  they  understand,  and  get 
so  close  to  them  that  they  do  not  feel  that 
his  superior  mind  is  a  barrier  between  them. 
The  weapon  placed  in  our  hand  for  service 
actually  proves  the  destruction  of  our 
usefulness. 

Or  take  culture,  the  development  of  good 
taste  in  music,  art,  literature,  the  refinement 
of  manners,  good  breeding,  delicacy  of  feel- 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        61 

ing.  We  recognize  that  this  is  something 
much  to  be  prized  and  hard  to  acquire  for 
any  not  to  the  manner  born.  Instinctively 
we  detect  the  difference  between  those  who 
possess  and  those  who  lack  it.  It  is  a  ticket 
of  admission  which  enables  its  fortunate 
holder  to  enter  the  best  society  of  the  past 
and  the  present,  to  appreciate  nature,  books, 
pictures,  architecture,  people.  And  besides 
the  incalculable  enrichment  which  it  confers 
to  the  man's  own  life,  it  ought  to  fit  him 
to  be  the  interpreter  of  things  true  and 
honorable  and  gentle  and  lovely  to  his  less 
fortunate  fellows.  But  how  frequently  it 
has  the  opposite  effect !  A  finely  cultivated 
taste  offers  so  many  chances  for  exquisite 
enjojonent  that  it  is  perilously  easy  to  live 
entirely  for  self-gratification.  A  sensitive 
appreciation  of  beauty  spontaneously  recoils 
from  all  that  is  unlovely.  Coleridge  said  of 
Dorothy  Wordsworth:  "Her  taste  is  a 
perfect  electrometer.  It  bends,  protrudes 
and  draws  in  at  subtlest  beauties  and  most 
recondite  faults."  And  with  such  a  delicate 
organ  it  is  all  too  easy  to  seek  to  banish  from 
one's  thoughts  the  unpleasant,  the  coarse, 
the   sickening;   to   surround   oneself   with 


62  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

agreeable  people;  to  give  oneself  to  eon- 
genial  occupations;  and  to  live  a  somewhat 
tame  and  artificial  and  useless  life  within 
a  high-walled,  formal  garden.  Culture 
ought  to  broaden  its  happy  possessors;  but 
how  many  pitifully  narrow  cultured  people 
we  all  know!  Their  much- vaunted  good 
taste  often  degenerates  into  that  which 
Dickens  caricatured  in  Mrs.  General,  whose 
refined  mind  would  dwell  on  nothing  that 
was  not  perfectly  proper,  placid  and  pleas- 
ant. And  as  for  religion,  one  would  expect 
that  a  mind  cultivated  to  see  and  respond  to 
beauty  and  goodness  would  leap  up  the 
instant  it  caught  sight  of  God  in  the  face  of 
Jesus  Christ.  But  conversions  are  exceed- 
ingly rare  among  cultivated  people.  It  may 
be  that  too  few  ministers  and  teachers  know 
how  to  present  the  King  in  His  beauty,  so 
that  He  appears  as  the  altogether  Lovely; 
but  people  of  culture  are  usually  sophisti- 
cated, and  from  the  beginning  babes  have 
seen  things  hidden  from  the  wise  and  pru- 
dent. And  again  it  is  not  good  form  to 
become  wildly  enthusiastic  about  anything, 
and  men  arrive  at  God  with  a  blazing  pas- 
sion for  His  Kingdom  and  His  righteous- 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED       63 

ness,  or  they  do  not  arrive  at  all.  And, 
above  all,  that  which  appreciates  God  is 
love — not  admiration,  not  good  taste,  but 
the  love  that  goes  out  in  selfless  service ;  and 
culture  makes  so  many  of  its  devotees 
self-centred.  You  remember  Tennyson's 
"Palace  of  Art,"  to  which  he  prefixed  the 
lines: 

I  send  you  here  a  sort  of  allegory — of  a  soul, 
A  sinful  soul,  possessed  of  many  gifts, 
A  spacious  garden  full  of  flowering  weeds, 
A  glorious  devil,  large  in  heart  and  brain. 
That  did  love  beauty  only — ^beauty  seen 
In  all  varieties  of  mould  and  mind. 

And  then  he  draws  the  picture  of  the  life 
that  banishes  the  disagreeable,  the  disgust- 
ing, the  terrible  elements  of  human  exist- 
ence, and  lives  in  its  exclusive  palace  with 
all  things  fair;  and  its  self-culture  becomes 
a  sword  that  pierces  it. 

And  he  that  shuts  Love  out,  in  turn  shall  be 
Shut  out  from  Love,  and  on  her  threshold  lie 
Howling  in  outer  darkness. 

Or  take  wealth.  It  is  nonsense  to  talk 
slightingly  of  means  and  to  cry  up  poverty. 
It  may  be  that  we  shall  have  the  poor  with 


64  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

us  always;  but  that  does  not  mean  that 
poverty  is  ever  anything  but  an  evil,  and  an 
evil  we  are  bound  to  battle  to  destroy.  A 
fair  share  for  everyone  in  God's  bountiful 
heritage  is  a  Christian  ideal.  And  wealth 
is  a  tool  with  which  one  can  accomplish  vast 
things  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Paul  tells 
us  that  we  are  to  labor  to  have  to  give.  But 
with  a  great  many  people  their  wealth  is 
the  most  serious  impediment  to  their  use- 
fulness. Because  they  possess  a  certain 
income,  they  feel  constrained  to  live  up  to 
it.  They  really  must  have  this  and  that, 
and  do  thus  and  so.  If  without  this  and 
that,  and  ceasing  to  do  thus  and  so,  they 
could  invest  their  lives  more  profitably,  it 
is  a  great  shame  that  the  conventions  of 
wealth  should  be  allowed  to  stand  in  their 
way.  Leaders  in  churches  and  philanthropic 
organizations  know  very  well  that  one  can 
seldom  count  upon  a  person  of  means 
for  reliable,  continuous  personal  service. 
Because  they  can  afford  to  go  here  and 
there,  to  gratify  this  and  that  desire,  to 
enjoy  the  country,  or  experience  the  delight 
of  travel,  or  go  in  for  some  time-consuming 
sport,  they  are  apt  to  do  it,  and  to  feel  that 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        65 

a  subscription  which  enables  others  to  do 
good  works  excuses  them  from  self-giving. 
Their  means  which  should  be  a  sword  with 
which  they  personally  take  the  field  becomes 
the  destroyer  of  their  self-sacrifice. 

And  (to  mention  swords  that  we  seldom 
think  of  as  instruments  of  suicide)  take 
goodness,  integrity  of  character.  To  be 
known  as  entirely  trustworthy,  to  be 
respected  as  honorable,  just  and  faithful, 
is  to  be  capable  of  the  largest  service  of  God 
and  man.  But  some  of  the  least  attractive 
people  you  and  I  know  are  thoroughly 
trustworthy.  The  men  who  crucified  Jesus 
were,  for  the  most  part,  good  men,  honor- 
able and  faithful  to  a  degree.  People  who 
are  not  altogether  honorable  and  not  at  all 
reliable  are  sometimes  more  sympathetic 
than  the  righteous.  It  is  hard  to  be  just 
without  becoming  somewhat  harsh,  to  be 
uncompromisingly  honest  without  ceasing 
to  be  tender,  to  be  straight  without  growing 
narrow.  The  effort  to  be  good  renders 
many  men  austere  and  hard.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  the  greater  evil  is  wrought  in 
the  world  by  the  scamps  and  rascals  or  by 
the  good  people,  whose  goodness  is  of  a 


66  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

rigid  and  disagreeable  variety.  Many  a 
man's  righteousness  has  spoiled  his  sympa- 
thy and  shut  him  off  from  helping  those  who 
most  needed  him.  And  it  is  not  without 
significance  that  Jesus  said,  "I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners."  Self- 
respect  takes  the  place  in  many  persons 
which  a  craving  for  God  should  occupy. 
So  long  as  they  are  conscious  of  living  up 
to  their  lights  and  doing  the  best  they  can, 
they  feel  no  need  of  God.  Their  very  good- 
ness, which  is  not  spurious  but  genuine  so 
far  as  it  goes,  makes  them  impervious  to  the 
appeals  of  the  Gospel.  That  which  stands 
in  the  way  of  their  becoming  better  is  not 
their  badness,  but  their  goodness.  They  are 
falling  on  their  own  swords. 

Or  take  religion.  A  vigorous  faith  in 
God  is  unquestionably  the  mightiest  weapon 
which  a  human  hand  can  grasp.  By  faith 
obstacles  are  vanquished,  wildernesses 
turned  into  springs  of  water,  waste  lives 
redeemed.  And  surely,  we  think,  religion 
can  never  hurt  anybody.  But  unfortunately 
it  can.  The  unseen  becomes  very  absorb- 
ing to  those  who  love  God,  and  they  easily 
grow  careless  of  their  small  obligations  to 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        67 

the  seen.  Religious  people  are  often  incon- 
siderate and  thoughtless.  They  are  deeply 
impressed  with  the  gracious  forgiveness  of 
God  and  rejoice  that  He  washes  them 
whiter  than  snow,  but  this  may  weaken  their 
consciences,  and  their  assurance  of  free 
forgiveness  allow  them  to  sin  with  greater 
impunity.  Companionship  with  God  ought 
to  make  conscience  more  sensitive,  but 
devout  people  are  not  conspicuous  for  the 
fineness  of  their  sense  of  honor  or  their 
scrupulous  regard  for  truth.  The  fact  that 
a  man  prays  does  not  guarantee  the  amia- 
bility of  his  disposition,  the  control  of  his 
temper,  or  the  gentleness  of  his  tongue. 
Religious  people  look  at  hfe  in  the  light  of 
eternity,  and  unfortunately  this  may  have 
the  effect  of  dulling  their  sense  of  the 
importance  of  what  they  are  and  do  today. 
Genuine  faith  in  God  has  been  associated 
at  some  time  or  other  with  almost  every 
diabolical  characteristic  in  human  nature 
one  can  mention.  In  Saul's  own  case  there 
was  no  lack  of  rehgion.  The  difficulty  was 
that  he  thought  that  by  being  devout  he 
could  compound  for  disregarding  the  diffi- 
cult   policy    of    the    rigorously    righteous 


68  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Samuel.  He  would  offer  a  sacrifice,  and 
that  would  excuse  him  for  keeping  a  good 
share  of  the  booty  of  his  raid  on  Agag;  and 
he  had  to  learn  the  bitter  lesson  that  "to 
obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken 
than  the  fat  of  rams."  His  thought  of 
God,  his  feeling  that  he  could  make  things 
right  with  Him,  proved  a  sword  upon  which 
he  fell  and  slew  himself. 

One  contrasts  with  the  tragic  death  of 
Saul  another  Old  Testament  suicide.  Blind 
Samson  grasps  the  pillars  of  the  temple  of 
Dagon  and  crying,  "Let  me  die  with  the 
Philistines!"  pulls  the  building  upon  him- 
self and  the  oppressors  of  his  people.  It 
forms  a  heroic  ending  which  redeems  the 
man's  misspent  life;  while  Saul's  is  the 
ignoble  climax  of  his  well-nigh  unbroken 
failure.  Had  he  but  shouted,  "Let  me  sell 
my  life  as  dearly  as  I  can!"  and  rushed  upon 
the  Philistines,  we  should  have  felt  him  a 
true  king  even  in  his  defeat  and  disaster. 
But  there  is  a  difference  between  the  two 
men.  Samson  did  not  care  what  happened 
to  him  so  long  as  he  slew  the  foes  of  his 
people.  Saul  could  not  get  his  mind  off 
himself.    "Draw  thy  sword,"  he  said  to  his 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        69 

armor-bearer,  "and  thrust  me  through 
therewith,  lest  these  uncircumcised  come 
and  thrust  me  through  and  abuse  me." 
One  is  reminded  of  the  death  of  a  far  baser 
man.  Nero  exclaims,  "Qualis  artifex 
pereo,"  posing  at  least  to  himself  even  in 
death.  Saul  cannot  help  thinking  of  what 
is  due  to  his  own  dignity.  If  he  had  cared 
only  for  the  kingdom  over  which  God  had 
set  him  and  for  the  people  whose  battle  he 
was  fighting,  it  would  have  made  no  differ- 
ence to  him  whether  a  Philistine  javelin  or 
an  Israelite's  sword  smote  him.  But  his 
pride,  his  self-importance,  rose  up  and 
obscured  his  consecration.  It  had  been  his 
self-will  which  led  to  the  rupture  with 
Samuel,  his  offended  feeling  that  brought 
him  to  sentence  Jonathan,  his  pique  that 
induced  him  to  banish  the  popular  David. 
Self  had  been  Saul's  lifelong  foe.  It  was 
the  evil  spirit  that  troubled  him.  He  could 
not  forget  himself,  lose  himself,  and  he  ends 
self-slain. 

Education,  culture,  wealth,  righteousness, 
religion — and  we  might  have  lengthened 
the  list  indefinitely — influence,  friendliness, 
love,  popularity,  what  not? — are  all  swords 


70  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

of  service,  but  swords  which  self-interest  will 
turn  into  weapons  of  suicide.  Very  few 
men  think  of  the  knowledge  of  which  Paul 
speaks  when  he  writes,  "I  know  how  to 
abound."  We  spend  a  great  deal  of  time 
in  learning  how  to  get,  but  never  think  of 
the  need  of  learning  how  to  have.  Paul  had 
learned  his  lesson  in  the  school  of  Him,  who 
having  all  things,  being  in  the  form  of  God, 
emptied  Himself.  It  is  only  the  man  who 
is  possessed  by  an  engrossing  interest,  by 
devotion  to  some  Israel  for  whom  God 
makes  him  responsible,  who  can  have 
weapons  of  service  and  wield  them  to  the 
destruction  of  the  enemies  of  the  Kingdom 
of  love.  We,  within  the  walls  of  Battell 
Chapel  this  morning,  represent  a  splendid 
equipment  in  brains,  in  refinement,  in  means, 
in  character,  in  faith,  but  it  is  all  too  pos- 
sible that  the  points  of  our  God-given 
swords  are  turned  towards  our  own  breasts 
and  that  we  are  falling  on  the  very  weapons 
given  us  for  divinest  use. 

You  remember  that  Samuel  had  tried  to 
fire  Saul's  imagination,  that  night  years 
before  on  the  housetop,  with  the  vision  of 
what  he  might  mean  to  the  tribes  of  Israel, 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        71 

and  that  the  spirit  of  patriotic  fervor,  the 
public  spirit,  came  on  him  when  he  met  the 
band  of  leaping  enthusiasts,  and  people 
said,  "Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets?" 
But  their  questioning  way  of  saying  it  tells 
the  story.  He  was,  but  not  wholly.  What 
of  ourselves?  Is  there  any  hesitancy  in 
people's  thoughts  where  to  classify  us? 

Never  mind  people;  their  judgments  are 
after  all  too  inaccurate  to  waste  our  thought 
on.  Where  do  we  classify  ourselves?  We 
want  to  be  useful  in  God's  service,  to  be 
warriors  of  the  Kingdom  of  righteousness. 
The  prophetic  fire  burns  here;  we  feel  its 
heat  every  now  and  again.  But  how 
entirely  does  it  consume  us?  Are  we 
flinging  all  our  heart,  soul,  mind,  strength, 
into  the  Kingdom,  or  have  we  side- 
interests — things  which  we  feel  we  have  a 
right  to  get  out  of  our  education,  our  cul- 
ture, our  wealth,  our  reputation,  our  faith, 
whether  they  bear  directly  on  the  cause  of 
God  or  not?  That  way  lies  suicide.  For 
whosoever  would  save  his  life — save  his 
intellectual  enjoyment  or  save  his  clever 
power  to  mould  men  to  his  will,  save  his  own 
sensitive  refinement  from  contact  with  the 


72  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

unpleasant,  save  the  comfort  and  indul- 
gence that  his  wealth  affords  irrespective  of 
its  hindrance  of  his  personal  service — he 
who  would  save  anything  for  himself  shall 
lose  it.  Saul  saved  the  doubtful  glory  of 
killing  himself,  instead  of  letting  his  last 
strength  go  out  in  attempting  to  fell 
another  Philistine;  and  his  foes  cut  off  his 
head,  stripped  his  corpse  and  hung  his  body 
in  public  shame  on  the  wall  of  Beth-shan, 
and  his  memory  is  displayed  as  a  pathetic 
failure  before  the  eyes  of  all  the  ages. 

But  how  is  a  man  to  lose  himself?  No  one 
can  do  it  by  trying  to.  The  harder  we  try, 
the  more  self-conscious  we  become.  Saul 
came  nearest  to  forgetting  himself  when 
he  was  with  Samuel  and  his  fellow  enthu- 
siasts. They  nearly  succeeded  in  getting 
him  wrapped  up  in  the  cause  of  his  people. 
And  we  have  One  whose  consecration  is  far 
more  compelling  than  theirs.  When  a  man 
catches  sight  of  Jesus  Christ,  if  there  is  any- 
thing inflammable  in  his  make-up,  it  takes 
fire.  That  for  which  Jesus  lived  and  died 
masters  him.  He  cannot  explain  the  fasci- 
nation; he  does  not  stop  to  try  to  explain 
it;  he  goes  headlong.     For  him  to  live  is 


ABILITIES  SUICIDALLY  USED        73 

Christ.  What  Jesus  wished  to  accomplish, 
what  He  believed  we  with  God  can  accom- 
plish, becomes  an  obsession.  "The  love  of 
Christ  constraineth  us."  The  cross  lifts  us 
clean  out  of  ourselves.  Love  so  amazing, 
so  divine,  not  only  demands,  but  has  power 
to  enforce  its  demand  for  soul,  life,  all. 
Whenever  self  with  its  persistent  pleas  for 
recognition  troubles  us,  our  safety  lies  in 
running  to  Calvary.  We  lose  self  in  the 
presence  of  the  Crucified.  We  cannot  help 
it.  There  is  in  Him,  as  He  pours  out  His 
soul  unto  death,  an  irresistible  persuasion. 
"Whether  we  live,  we  live  unto  the  Lord; 
and  whether  we  die,  we  die  unto  the  Lord; 
whether  we  live  therefore,  or  die,  we  are  the 
Lord's,"  and  the  swords  in  our  hands 
become  the  swords  of  our  God  and  of  His 
Christ,  weapons  through  which  we  bring  all 
things  into  subjection  to  Him. 

Some  here  today  are  like  Saul  on  the 
housetop  with  their  whole  careers  still  ahead 
of  them.  God  grant  that  Jesus  Christ  may 
lay  His  spell  on  them  and  rid  them  of  self 
from  the  start.  Others  of  us  are  more  like 
Saul  at  Gilboa  with  a  long  list  of  occasions 
behind  us  when  self-regard  or  self-pity  or 


74  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

self-concern  or  self-conceit  has  made  us  use 
our  swords  of  service  to  our  own  hurt. 
But  He  who  is  able  to  save  unto  the  utter- 
most can  on  the  final  battlefield,  when  the 
cause  seems  wholly  lost,  make  us  sharers 
of  His  wish.  His  enthusiasm.  His  sacrifice, 
and  as  we  raise  the  sword  resolved  to  hit 
at  least  one  blow  for  God  regardless  of  what 
happens  to  us.  He  will  make  us  more  than 
conquerors  over  self  and  the  world. 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH 
UPON  CHRISTIANS 

John  .20:21;  22.  Jesus  said  to  them,  As  the 
Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  send  I  you.  And  when 
He  had  said  this.  He  breathed  on  them,  and  saith 
unto  them.  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Spirit. 

In  Jesus'  commission  to  His  first  disciples 
we  get  a  clear  definition  of  the  Christian 
Church.  It  is  the  company  of  those  who 
share  the  purpose  of  Jesus  and  possess  His 
Father's  Spirit  for  its  accomplishment. 

Protestantism  has  so  emphasized  the 
individual's  personal  fellowship  with  God, 
that  it  has  often  lost  sight  of  his  necessary 
fellowship  with  the  Church,  the  communion 
of  those  of  like  purpose  organized  for  col- 
lective service.  We  need  to  remind  our- 
selves that,  unique  as  was  Jesus'  relation  to 
God,  He  was  a  loyal  churchman. 

He  was  born  into  the  Jewish  Church,  and 
the  first  recorded  incidents  of  His  child- 
hood— His  circumcision  and  presentation 
in  the  Temple — were  His  public  recognition 


76  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

as  a  church  member.  The  earliest  expres- 
sion of  His  own  religious  experience  was 
His  saying  to  His  parents  that  He  must  be 
in  His  Father's  house.  That  Church  was 
the  heir  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  lawgivers, 
psalmists,  sages,  and  of  generations  of  lowly 
and  earnest  believing  men  and  women. 
Two  of  the  evangelists  give  us  genealogies, 
which  interest  us  today  not  so  much  as  lines 
of  physical  descent  but  as  the  ancestry  of 
Jesus'  faith.  The  heritage  of  the  Jewish 
Church  was  Jesus'  birthright.  He  expressed 
His  respect  for  the  official  leaders  of  the 
body  which  had  preserved  the  choicest  reli- 
gious experiences  of  the  past  in  its  Scrip- 
tures, kept  alive  devotion  to  the  God  of 
Israel  in  the  world,  and  was  holding  up, 
however  imperfectly,  the  ideal  of  His  King- 
dom, when  He  said,  "The  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees sit  on  Moses'  seat :  all  things,  therefore, 
whatsoever  they  bid  you,  these  observe  and 
do."  In  that  Church's  trust  His  faith  was 
born;  in  its  worship  and  teaching  His  soul 
was  shaped  and  nourished;  in  its  consecra- 
tion the  flame  of  His  own  sacrifice  was 
kindled.  To  it  He  owed  a  debt  which  He 
never  repudiated. 


1 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  77 

A  Christian  today  is  under  no  less  obliga- 
tion to  the  Church.  Those  who  stand  aloof 
from  it  and  coolly  criticise  it,  as  though  they 
sustained  no  personal  relation  to  it,  are  as 
unfilial  as  the  man  who  would  "peep  and 
botanize  upon  his  mother's  grave."  There 
are  doubtless  some  things  about  the  Church 
with  which  we  cannot  sympathize.  Its 
beliefs  may  appear  to  us  crude  at  a  number 
of  points,  and  its  official  creeds  phrased  in 
obsolete  forms;  its  standards  of  conduct 
may  seem  deficient  in  social  obligation;  its 
outlook  may  be  narrow,  prejudiced  and 
exclusive  of  much  that  is  not  alien  to  the 
purpose  of  the  Son  of  man;  its  methods  may 
impress  us  as  pathetically  ineffective  with 
large  sections  of  our  population.  The 
Jewish  Church  in  Jesus'  day  was  lacking  in 
His  eyes  in  all  these  respects;  but  the  fact 
remained  that  it  had  been  His  spiritual 
mother,  and  this  kinship  gave  Him  a 
responsibility  He  could  not  disown. 

Again,  its  fellowship  seemed  to  Him 
indispensable  for  His  own  religious  inspira- 
tion. The  life  in  which  all  succeeding 
generations  have  seen  the  fullness  of  the 
Godhead    was    not    self-sufficient.      Jesus* 


78  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

originality  consisted  in  His  discriminating 
appropriation  of  the  best  He  found  in 
existing  institutions,  ideals,  beliefs,  and 
transforming  it  for  His  own  purpose.  He 
went  regularly  to  the  services  of  the  syna- 
gogue and  kept  the  appointed  festivals  at 
Jerusalem.  There  must  have  been  many 
phrases  in  the  prayers  of  the  liturgy  which 
He  found  imperfect  and  even  objection- 
able. There  were  portions  of  the  Church's 
recognized  Scriptures  which  He  considered 
outworn  and  inadequate  representations  of 
God.  He  must  often  have  been  bored  by 
dull  and  unenlightened  sermons.  Some  of 
the  Church's  leaders  did  not  command 
His  respect,  and  many  of  his  fellow  wor- 
shippers must  have  seemed  insincere  and 
uninspiring.  But  He  did  not  depend  upon 
His  own  Bible  reading  and  private  com- 
munion with  God  for  the  development  of 
His  spirit.  The  fellowship  of  kindred  souls 
and  the  stimulus  of  social  worship  were  to 
Him  essential  for  His  religious  vitahty. 

Many  high-principled  Christians  do  not 
attend  church  services  and  have  no  formal 
connection  with  the  organization  today.  It 
is  undeniable  that  there  are  many  religious 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  79 

stimuli  besides  those  that  come  from  public 
worship  and  fellowship  with  the  Church — 
stimuli  in  literature,  in  education,  in  social 
service;  but  if  the  Son  of  God  could  not 
do  without  inspirations  which  came  to  Him 
from  the  Jewish  Church,  it  is  surely  not 
likely  that  a  modern  Christian  can  maintain 
his  spiritual  life  at  its  utmost  vigor  without 
constant  contact  with  the  Christian  Church, 
which,  however  faulty,  is  certainly  no 
faultier  than  the  Church  Jesus  knew. 

And  again,  Jesus  found  in  the  Church 
the  largest  opportunity  for  the  investment 
of  His  personal  religious  life.  According 
to  Luke's  narrative,  as  soon  as  He  became 
aware  of  His  special  spiritual  endowment 
and  had  gone  through  the  testing  in  the 
wilderness,  He  returned  to  the  synagogue 
in  which  He  had  been  reared,  and  announced 
that  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  upon  Him. 
It  is  in  a  religious  society  that  a  man  can 
find  his  largest  usefulness  for  the  Kingdom. 
In  an  organization  others  will  supplement 
him,  catch  his  zeal,  receive  his  new  ideas, 
spread  his  influence  where  he  cannot  per- 
sonally go,  and  carry  on  the  impetus  of  his 
life  long  after  he  has  ceased  to  be.     The 


80  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Jewish  Church  offered  Jesus  pulpits  from 
which  to  speak  His  message,  a  theology  in 
which  to  clothe  His  thoughts,  a  heritage  of 
spiritual  force  with  which  He  could  ally 
Himself,  a  membership  of  believing  people 
from  which  He  drew  His  first  adherents. 
He  seemed  to  feel  that  if  He  could  capture 
this  organization,  and  get  it  to  adopt  His 
purpose,  He  would  have  an  incalculable 
reinforcement.  He  was  disappointed;  but 
whatever  success  He  attained,  He  won 
through  it. 

Where  can  a  man  with  the  purpose  of 
Christ  today  find  a  larger  opportunity  than 
in  the  Christian  Church?  Here  is  the 
impetus  of  the  past  to  forward  him;  here 
are  lives  with  kindred  faith  and  devotion  to 
be  his  partners ;  here  is  a  wealth  of  sentiment 
to  which  he  can  appeal ;  here  is  conveniently 
arranged  machinery  to  multiply  his  effect- 
iveness; here  is  a  body  into  which  he  can 
infuse  his  spirit,  and  which  will  conserve 
the  results  of  his  work  long  after  he  has 
passed  away.  If  he  disagrees  with  its 
official  creeds,  let  him  seek  to  revise  and 
improve  them,  as  Jesus  sought  to  teach  the 
Church  of  His  age.    If  he  thinks  that  it  is 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  81 

wasting  its  energies  on  trifles,  let  him  recall 
it  to  its  divine  commission,  as  Jesus  set 
forth  to  the  congregation  at  Nazareth  the 
purpose  of  God.  If  he  considers  its  methods 
ineffective,  let  him  show  it  a  more  excellent 
way;  and  the  Church,  with  all  its  tradition- 
alism, is  sincerely  eager  to  be  made  more 
efficient.  Let  him  inspire  it,  by  his  thought 
and  consecration  and  sacrifice,  with  a  new 
spirit,  with  more  of  its  own  spirit — ^the 
Eternal  Spirit  of  the  God  and  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ.  A  Christian  can  do  most,  not 
in  isolation,  but  in  fellowship  with  the 
company  of  like-purposing  believers. 

We  sometimes  wonder  that  Jesus  founded 
no  organization.  This  was  not  due,  as  has 
been  alleged,  to  His  hostility  to  organiza- 
tion, but  to  the  fact  that  in  the  Jewish 
Church  He  found  such  an  organization 
already  in  existence.  He  was  not  primarily 
interested  in  polity,  or  creed,  or  worship, 
or  methods,  but  in  the  spirit  and  purpose 
of  the  Church.  If  once  He  could  fill  it  with 
His  Spirit  and  commit  it  to  His  purpose, 
its  government,  theology,  ritual,  methods, 
would  adjust  themselves.  When  it  became 
evident  that  the  Jewish  Church,  as  a  whole, 


82  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

could  not  be  won,  He  gave  Himself  to  the 
task  of  inspiring  a  small  group  within  it 
with  His  mind.  The  Spirit  could  be  trusted 
to  find  a  Body  of  its  own  in  which  to  gain 
expression.  The  sole  condition  of  member- 
ship in  the  New  Testament  Church  was 
possession  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus;  and 
with  large  local  differences  in  its  forms  of 
administration,  many  varieties  of  theological 
opinion  and  much  diversity  in  worship,  it 
was  an  effective  organization  for  its  divine 
purpose,  compacted  by  loyalty  to  Jesus  and 
consecration  to  His  aims. 

The  Christian  Church  is  the  chief  agency 
in  our  day  for  the  setting  up  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  As  such,  it  has  a  claim  on  all  who 
share  the  purpose  of  Jesus.  A  man  cannot 
consistently  follow  Him,  without  following 
Him  into  the  fellowship  of  the  Church. 

In  its  present  outwardly  disunited  condi- 
tion. Christians  do  not  always  recognize  the 
obligation  of  church  membership.  Denomi- 
nationalism  may  be  offensive  to  them;  and 
they  cannot  unite  with  the  Church  save  as 
they  belong  to  one  of  the  churches.  But 
to  serve  in  one  regiment  in  an  army  is  not 
to  disparage  the  equal  loyalty  and  useful- 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  83 

ness  of  all  the  other  troops,  and  there  is  no 
way  of  enlisting  in  an  army  save  by  enlist- 
ing in  some  particular  branch  of  the  service. 

Or  a  man  may  feel  that  no  existing  com- 
munion fulfills  his  ideal.  Let  him  remain 
in  that  in  which  he  was  born,  to  which  his 
obligation  is  certainly  strongest;  or,  if  that 
seems  impossible,  let  him  enter  that  in  which 
he  can  work  with  least  friction.  If  a  man 
is  entirely  satisfied  with  any  existing  church, 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  will  not  enter  it, 
and  if  he  is  in  such  already,  that  he  will 
hasten  to  leave.  He  will  hinder  and  hamper 
its  advance,  and  be  in  matters  ecclesiastical 
that  hopeless  factor  whom  in  political  life 
we  label  a  "stand-patter." 

Nor  is  there  any  inconsistency  in  worship- 
ping and  working,  or  even  in  occupying  a 
position  of  leadership,  in  a  communion  with 
whose  creed,  or  ritual,  or  methods  one  is  not 
in  full  sympathy.  That  was  Jesus'  condi- 
tion in  the  Jewish  Church,  and  a  Christian 
can  well  be  as  inconsistent  as  his  Lord.  The 
point  is  that  church  membership  is  not  an 
optional  responsibility  which  a  follower  of 
Jesus  may  or  may  not  assume;  he  cannot 
follow  his  Lord  and  refuse  to  contribute  the 


84  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

inspiration  of  his  personality  to  the  social 
group  which  is  functioning  collectively  for 
the  Kingdom. 

For  those  of  us  who  are  already  in  the 
memhership  of  one  of  the  churches  this 
conception  of  the  Church  carries  a  duty  to 
stand  for  a  distinctive  type  of  churchman- 
ship.  We  must  seek  to  render  our  com- 
munion as  inclusive  as  the  Church  of  Christ, 
with  a  welcome  and  a  scope  for  every 
follower  of  Jesus.  We  must  protest  against 
doctrinal  tests,  or  the  insistence  on  a  par- 
ticular type  of  religious  experience,  or  the 
emphasis  upon  conformity  to  some  hallowed 
rite,  that  would  bar  its  fellowship  to  any 
sincere  Christian.  We  must  wage  incessant 
warfare  against  denominational  snobbery, 
which,  while  admitting  that  other  churches 
are  Christian,  considers  one's  own  a  more 
select  company  of  the  spiritually  elite.  We 
must  stand  for  Church  unity,  not  by  dis- 
sociating ourselves  from  our  communion, 
but  by  working  heartily  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God  through  it,  striving  all  the  while  to 
increase  its  efficiency  by  doing  away  with 
whatever  in  its  standards,  worship  or 
administration  prevents   any  man  who  is 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  85 

fit  to  minister  in  any  church  from  entering 
its  ministry,  or  which  debars  any  genuine 
follower  of  Jesus  from  finding  a  congenial 
home  in  its  membership.  We  do  not  wish 
to  reduce  the  Church's  thought  to  an 
impossible  agreement,  nor  its  government 
to  a  mechanical  uniformity,  nor  its  worship 
to  monotonous  sameness;  this  would  render 
it  of  no  value  to  many  temperaments  and 
minds;  but  to  make  it  include  the  widest 
possible  differences  within  a  unity  of  spirit 
that  shall  make  it  function  harmoniously 
and  unitedly  for  its  one  divine  purpose. 

There  are  times  when  the  Church  of 
Christ,  as  represented  in  the  existing 
churches,  is  a  heavy  cross  to  faith.  In 
the  majority  of  local  churches  financial 
support  is  an  ever-pressing  problem,  and 
the  organization  devotes  the  largest  part  of 
its  energies  to  the  often  sordid  struggle  for 
subsistence.  Like  all  great  institutions,  the 
Church  is  naturally  conservative,  and  gives 
but  a  cold  welcome  to  its  ablest  scholars  and 
keenest  thinkers,  who  offer  it  new  and  fuller 
glimpses  of  truth;  and  it  has  often  perse- 
cuted its  prophets  and  garnished  their 
sepulchres  in  a  succeeding  generation.     It 


86  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

is  constantly  exposed  to  the  tendency  to 
consider  the  prejudices  of  those  already 
within  its  fellowship,  and  to  adapt  its  work 
to  suit  their  tastes,  rather  than  to  think 
primarily  of  those  who  are  outside  and  to 
shape  its  methods  to  reach  them.  As  it  is 
composed  of  average  people,  it  will  usually 
offend  the  cultured  by  its  crudities  and  the 
aesthetic  by  its  lack  of  taste.  Above  all,  its 
work,  which  requires  the  most  spiritually 
gifted  to  do  it  well,  has  to  be  entrusted 
to  persons  of  ordinary,  and  sometimes  con- 
siderably less  than  ordinary,  ability;  and 
their  lack  of  inspiration,  or  intelligence,  or 
tact,  or  fidelity,  pitifully  cripples  the  work- 
ing Body  of  Christ.  Under  such  circum- 
stances it  is  not  astonishing  that  even  those 
who  are  predisposed  to  think  well  of  all  who 
work  in  Christ's  name  are  tempted  to  ask: 
"Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers  of 
Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of 
Israel?" 

But  the  stream  of  spiritual  vitality  in  the 
Church  is,  nevertheless,  the  river  which 
makes  glad  the  city  of  God.  What  one  of 
our  great  rivers,  a  Hudson  or  a  Connecticut, 
for  instance,  is  to  the  country  through  which 


I 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  87 

it  flows,  the  Church  is  to  human  society. 
The  river's  more  rapid  upper  reaches  turn 
millwheels  and  supply  power  to  run  fac- 
tories and  to  light  towns.  Its  pools  are 
the  swimming  places  of  small  boys  in 
summer  and  their  skating  ponds  in  winter. 
In  its  shallows  the  cattle  stand  and  cool 
themselves  on  torrid  days.  At  intervals  its 
banks  are  cut  and  its  water  deflected  to  fill 
canals.  Its  broader  waters  bear  vessels 
freighted  with  merchandise.  It  sweeps  past 
cities,  carrying  the  filth  from  their  sewers 
out  into  the  ocean.  And  all  along  its  course 
meadows  are  richer,  trees  more  luxuriant, 
the  whole  countryside  fairer  and  more 
fruitful  for  its  beneficent  presence.  Such 
is  the  Church  of  God  in  the  world  of  men. 
It  supplies  busy  lives  with  inspiration  to  do 
the  world's  work  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  It 
affords  little  children  their  happiest  ideals 
and  develops  them  for  their  highest  service. 
It  rests  the  tired  with  its  ministry  of  comfort 
and  renewal.  It  furnishes  devoted  workers 
to  innumerable  organizations  whose  work  is 
parallel  with  its  own  aims.  It  supports  and 
carries  along  lives  laden  with  responsibilities 
and  burdened  with  oppressive  weights.     It 


88  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

cleanses  the  sinning  and  purifies  the  social 
life,  to  which  it  brings  the  constant  flow  of 
its  purer  standards  and  more  generous 
spirit.  And  wherever  the  Church  is,  lives 
that  are  »0*  in  direct  touch  with  it  are  richer 
in  ideals,  fairer  in  character,  and  more 
fruitful  in  service  for  its  inspiring  presence 
in  their  neighborhood.  There  are,  doubt- 
less, showers  of  divine  blessing  that  refresh 
God's  earth  everywhere,  and  dews  of  mercy 
that  form  nightly  over  the  most  parched  and 
barren  soil;  but  the  Church  is  the  channel 
through  which  the  central  stream  of  divine 
life  is  flowing  to  fructify  the  earth  with 
fruits  of  righteousness  akin  to  those  of 
Jesus. 

In  every  age  the  Church  has  felt  that  the 
flow  of  divine  life  and  power  in  it  was  a 
mere  trickle;  and  this  is  true  today.  We 
recognize  the  Church's  mission — ^to  cleanse 
every  sphere  of  our  social  life  and  permeate 
a  whole  world  with  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
Christ.  And  how  titanic  the  task  is!  The 
Church  looks  expectantly  and  trustfully  to 
its  sons  and  daughters  in  the  schools  and 
colleges  of  the  land,  pleading  with  them  to 
acknowledge  their  spiritual  debt,  to  avail 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHURCH  89 

themselves  of  its  stores  of  garnered  and 
living  inspiration,  and  to  bring  the  wealth 
of  their  endowment  and  energy  to  augment 
its  forces  and  fulfill  its  world-wide  mission. 
And  shall  it  look  in  vain? 


VI 
FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE 

1  Samuel  21:10-16.  And  David  arose,  and  fled 
that  day  for  fear  of  Saul,  and  went  to  Achish,  the 
king  of  Gath.  And  the  servants  of  Achish  said  unto 
him.  Is  not  this  David,  the  king  of  the  land?  did  they 
not  sing  one  to  another  of  him  in  dances,  saying, 

Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands_, 
And  David  his  ten  thousands? 

And  David  laid  up  these  words  in  his  heart,  and  was 
sore  afraid  of  Achish,  the  king  of  Gath.  And  he 
changed  his  behaviour  before  them,  and  feigned  him- 
self mad  in  their  hands,  and  scrabbled  on  the  doors 
of  the  gate,  and  let  his  spittle  fall  down  upon  his 
beard.  Then  said  Achish  unto  his  servants,  Lo,  ye 
see  the  man  is  mad:  wherefore  then  have  ye  brought 
him  to  me  ?  Do  I  lack  madmen,  that  ye  have  brought 
this  fellow  to  play  the  madman  in  my  presence  ?  shall 
this  fellow  come  into  my  house  ? 

This  is  a  curious  tale  to  hand  down 
through  the  centuries  associated  with  the 
name  of  David,  the  revered  founder  of 
Israel's  sacred  dynasty.  It  represents  the 
national    hero    rescuing    himself    from    a 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  91 

situation  where  he  was  under  suspicion,  not 
by  some  devout  appeal  to  God,  nor  by  some 
act  of  prowess,  but  by  making  a  most 
indecorous  fool  of  himself,  and  behaving  like 
a  raving  maniac.  One  wonders  why  any 
historian  compihng  an  edifying  account  of 
this  great  man's  career  should  have  included 
this  incident.  No  pubhc  man  today  would 
retain  a  press  agent  who  did  not  show  more 
discrimination.  And  when  one  recalls  that 
Israel's  historians  are  always  preachers, 
recording  events  not  merely  or  mainly  in 
order  to  present  a  complete  picture,  but  to 
hold  up  an  inspiring  ideal,  what  possible 
religious  message  could  the  editor  of  these 
tales  have  found  in  this  strange  occurrence 
in  the  life  of  Israel's  greatest  and  most 
honored  monarch? 

It  is  plain  that  our  editor  was  thinking 
of  David  as  already  a  sovereign,  for  he 
makes  the  Philistines  call  him  "the  king  of 
the  land,"  although  in  fact  he  was  as  yet 
merely  a  runaway  from  the  court  of  King 
Saul,  suspected  and  hated  because  of  his 
too  great  popularity,  and  apparently  unat- 
tended by  any  followers.  Now  that  a  king 
of  whom  popular  fame  was  singing, 


92  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands, 
And  David  his  ten  thousands, 

should  deliberately  act  the  lunatic  is,  to  say 
the  least,  surprisingly  undignified.  Evi- 
dently this  discerning  editor  wished  us  to 
notice  that  David  did  not  let  his  dignity 
stand  in  his  way.  And  it  was  a  point  worth 
emphasizing,  for  dignity  has  been  a  most 
serious  impediment  to  many  men  with  king- 
like roles  to  play  in  the  world's  life.  They 
have  been  willing  to  do  almost  anything  for 
a  great  cause  provided  it  did  not  make  them 
appear  ridiculous.  People  dare  be  anything 
but  fools.  Now  David's  life  was  in  peril: 
he  had  to  choose  between  his  dignity  and 
his  neck;  and  he  chose  the  latter.  It  may 
have  been  a  mortifying  memory  that  stayed 
with  him  all  his  days,  that  once  before  the 
traditional  foes  of  his  people,  the  detested 
Philistines,  he  had  been  forced  to  appear 
an  idiot;  but  it  was  necessary  to  keep  him- 
self for  the  larger  work  God  had  in  store 
for  him. 

There  are  strange  items  in  the  program 
God  assigns  to  every  man.  Few  of  us  fail 
to  find  ourselves  led  into  situations  where 
we  feel  like  fools.    This  odd  event  in  King 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  93 

David's  assorted  experience  recalls  a  similar 
happening  that  remained  fixed  in  the 
memory  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  Have  you 
ever  noticed  how  he  concludes  that  striking 
Odyssey  of  woes  in  the  Eleventh  Chapter 
of  Second  Corinthians?  He  runs  over  the 
list  of  his  toils  and  pains — prisons,  stripes, 
deaths,  stonings,  perils  of  robbers,  of  rivers, 
in  the  wilderness,  in  the  sea,  among  false 
brethren,  labor  and  travail,  hunger  and 
thirst,  cold  and  nakedness,  shipwreck  ("a 
night  and  a  day  have  I  been  in  the  deep")  — 
and  then  as  the  climax  of  all:  "In  Damascus 
the  governor  under  Aretas  the  king  guarded 
the  city  of  the  Damascenes  in  order  to  take 
me:  and  through  a  window  was  I  let  down 
in  a  basket  by  the  wall,  and  escaped  his 
hands."  Why  does  he  place  that  adventure 
in  a  basket  above  stonings  and  shipwrecks 
and  what  not?  John  Henry  Newman  called 
Paul  a  proud  man;  whether  he  was  or  not, 
he  had  a  certain  position  in  the  world,  and 
to  think  of  the  brilliant  pupil  of  Gamaliel, 
the  man  who  had  been  commissioned  by  the 
chief  priests  to  stamp  out  the  troublesome 
sect  of  the  Nazarenes,  the  man  who  had 
become  the  leading  figure  in  that  growing 


94  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

sect,  the  man  who  could  not  have  been 
unaware  of  his  own  superbly  equipped  and 
keen-cutting  intellect,  the  citizen  of  the 
Roman  Empire  who  knew  well  how  to 
assert  his  rights  and  make  the  magistrates 
of  so  considerable  a  place  as  Philippi  come 
and  apologize  for  having  beaten  him — to 
think  of  that  man  being  bundled,  as  Shakes- 
peare's Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  bundle  the 
absurd  Sir  John  Falstaff,  into  a  clothes- 
basket,  and  lowered  over  the  wall  all  doubled 
up  inside,  was  surely  the  extreme  humilia- 
tion. The  apostle  looked  back  on  that  as 
the  culmination  of  the  things  he  had  endured 
for  the  sake  of  the  exacting  Master  he 
served.  When  he  asked,  "Lord,  what 
wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?"  it  had  never 
occurred  to  him  that  he  would  be  told  to 
pocket  his  pride  and  be  packed  away  in  a 
hamper. 

You  and  I,  as  Christians,  are  summoned 
to  be  kings  unto  God.  We  are  to  be  the 
lordly  children  of  the  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth;  but  we  must  expect  some  queer  items 
in  the  kingly  existence.  Conscientious 
followers  of  Christ  repeatedly  discover 
themselves  in  comic  situations.     We  pass 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  95 

SO  quickly  in  our  most  earnest  efforts  from 
the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous.  Recall  the 
efforts  you  have  made  to  talk  to  some 
indifferent  man  about  personal  religion, 
your  experiences  as  a  Sunday  school  teacher, 
your  work  for  some  great  public  cause,  and 
how  grotesquely  the  droll  and  the  serious 
were  blended!  There  were  times  when  you 
did  not  know  whether  to  laugh  or  cry. 
There  were  certainly  moments  when  others 
thought  you  a  fool,  and  when  you  were 
entirely  ready  to  agree  with  them.  But  the 
point  is  that  the  ridiculous  seems  to  be  as 
truly  part  of  God's  will  as  the  sublime. 
David  playing  the  madman  is  no  less  the 
man  after  God's  own  heart  than  David  the 
sweet  singer  of  Israel,  or  David  the  slayer 
of  Goliath  of  Gath. 

A  moment  ago  we  were  contrasting 
David's  escape  from  his  perilous  position  by 
making  a  fool  of  himself  with  a  possible 
escape  by  some  act  of  bravery.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  such  contrast;  it  often  requires 
considerable  courage  to  be  willing  to  be 
scorned  as  an  idiot.  Many  of  us  can  stand 
almost  anjiihing  but  that.  Hawthorne  has 
written:   "The  greatest  obstacle  to   being 


96  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

heroic  is  the  doubt  whether  one  may  not  be 
going  to  prove  one's  self  a  fool;  the  truest 
heroism  is  to  resist  the  doubt;  and  the  pro- 
foundest  wisdom  to  know  when  it  ought  to 
be  resisted,  and  when  to  be  obeyed."  AU 
Christian  service  contains  that  risk;  we  are 
constantly  doing  things  that  men  of  a 
certain  reputation  for  shrewdness  consider 
silly.  Paul  said  once  sarcastically:  "We  are 
fools  for  Christ's  sake";  but  he  might 
have  said  it  as  truly  in  sober  seriousness. 
There  was  not  a  man  who  graduated  from 
Gamaliel's  classroom  with  him  who  would 
not  have  told  you  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  had 
a  splendid  record  at  Jerusalem  and  showed 
marvellous  promise,  but  the  poor  fellow 
became  the  victim  of  a  fantastic  delusion 
and  was  as  mad  as  a  March  hare.  And 
there  must  have  been  times  when  it  was 
difficult  for  Paul  not  to  share  their  opinion. 
When  everybody  looks  at  you  with  a  pitying 
glance  as  "a  little  off,"  it  is  not  easy  to 
maintain  one's  assurance  of  sobriety.  When 
he  saw  the  incredulous  looks  of  his  ques- 
tioners on  Mars'  Hill,  when  he  preached  and 
noticed  distinguished  hearers  nodding  know- 
ingly at  one  another  and  remarking  that 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  97 

the  fellow  was  beside  himself,  it  required 
unusual  courage  to  persevere.  Nobody  can 
be  genuinely  in  earnest  without  appearing 
eccentric  in  a  world  where  intensity  is  con- 
sidered bad  form.  All  devoted  Christians 
seem  a  little,  perhaps  very,  queer  to  men 
and  women  whose  hearts  have  never  been 
kindled  with  their  fire.  We  must  certainly 
not  cultivate  singularity;  the  sanest  of  us 
have  enough  eccentricities  without  seeking 
to  add  to  them ;  but  we  need  the  daring  that 
keeps  us  faithful  to  our  highest  Christian 
impulses  and  persistent  in  our  most  exact- 
ing Christian  tasks,  when  our  comfortable 
and  unenthusiastic  acquaintances  let  us 
know  that  they  consider  us  odd.  "We  are 
fools  for  Christ's  sake." 

This  incident  discloses  a  certain  sense  of 
humor  in  King  David.  One  can  imagine 
him  smiling  inwardly  as  he  drummed  on  the 
door,  assumed  an  utterly  idiotic  expression, 
and  saw  the  indignant  and  insulted  Achish 
berate  his  officious  servants  for  having  ven- 
tured to  inflict  a  lunatic  on  him.  The 
whole  affair  was  a  joke;  and  one  is  glad  to 
think  that  poor  David,  whose  existence  at 
that  time  was  an  uninterrupted  chapter  of 


98  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

perils  and  hardships,  had  the  soHd  satisfac- 
tion of  at  least  one  good,  hearty  laugh, 
although  he  was  forced  to  muffle  it  and  keep 
it  to  himself. 

Possibly  we  may  be  attributing  to  our 
discerning  historian  a  purpose  that  was 
foreign  to  his  mind  when  we  think  of  his 
including  this  droll  incident  in  order  to 
teach  his  readers  the  value  of  humor  as  a 
tool  in  God's  service.  David  conquered  one 
Philistine  with  a  sling,  and  another  by  a 
practical  joke;  and  who  will  say  that  the 
second  was  not  as  divine  a  method  as  the 
first?  Much  might  be  said  for  the  sustain- 
ing power  of  a  sense  of  the  comic.  There 
are  exceedingly  difficult  and  trying  circum- 
stances to  be  endured,  when  a  man's  eye  for 
the  absurd  side  of  a  vexation  is  the  secret 
of  his  patience.  If  one  did  not  smile  to 
one's  self  at  certain  types  of  people,  one 
might  lose  temper,  and  tongue,  and  every 
Christian  grace,  in  dealing  with  them. 
David's  quiet  laugh  at  Achish  and  his  men 
must  have  been  a  refreshing  brook  by  the 
way,  of  which  he  drank  and  lifted  up  his 
head. 

And  it  was  his  sense  of  humor  that  saved 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  99 

his  life.  If  he  had  not  been  able  to  make 
a  buffoon  of  himself  he  would  have  been 
speedily  put  out  of  the  way  as  a  dangerous 
Hebrew  warrior;  but  Achish  could  not 
bring  himself  to  kill  a  fool.  What  was  the 
use?  Humor  is  an  effective  weapon  for 
disarming  hostility.  The  sharpness  of  con- 
troversy can  be  sheathed  if  a  man  will  only 
exercise  his  appreciation  of  the  comic  and 
introduce  the  playful  element.  One  can 
say  well-nigh  anjrthing  inoffensively  if  it  is 
mixed  with  a  sufficient  quantity  of  foolish- 
ness. This  is  not  to  commend  flippancy; 
far  from  it.  Poor  David  was  never  more 
dead  in  earnest  than  when  he  was  screwing 
up  his  face  into  the  most  outlandish  grim- 
aces and  scrabbling  on  the  door:  his  life 
depended  on  the  idiocy  of  his  appearance. 
"Humor,"  Miss  Thackeray  has  well  phrased 
it,  "Humor  is  thinking  in  fun,  while  we  feel 
in  earnest." 

And  again  we  were  contrasting  this 
fantastic  way  of  meeting  a  crisis  with  that 
of  appealing  devoutly  to  God.  There  seems 
to  be  a  difference  between  David's  method 
when  the  people  were  on  the  point  of 
stoning  him,  and  it  is  written,  "But  David 


100  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

strengthened  himself  in  Jehovah,  his  God," 
and  this  narrative  where  he  pretends  to  be 
mad.  But  why  should  we  insist  on  a  con- 
trast? Is  it  not  as  likely  that  David 
strengthened  himself  in  God,  and  that  the 
waking  of  his  sense  of  humor  to  the  possible 
comic  escape  from  his  predicament  was 
God's  answer  to  his  appeal?  Shall  we  not 
reckon  humor  among  the  offspring  of  the 
Father  of  mercies?  It  requires  strength  to 
think  in  fun,  while  we  feel  in  earnest — the 
strength  of  perfect  poise  and  self-possession. 
A  man  cannot  be  frightened  to  death  and 
keep  his  wits  about  him  and  carry  off  his 
part.  David's  life  hung  in  the  balance ;  but 
he  was  in  no  panic;  he  had  hold  of  himself, 
and  could  act  this  absurd  role  with  complete 
success.  It  is  a  striking  instance  of  the 
perfect  peace  of  a  mind  stayed  on  God. 

And  how  immensely  desirable  is  this 
strength  to  think  in  fun  while  we  feel  in 
earnest!  It  saves  one  from  a  vast  amount 
of  nervous  wear  and  tear.  David  had  a 
most  racking  experience  at  the  court  of 
Achish;  after  such  an  ordeal  most  of  us 
would  have  been  entirely  used  up  mentally; 
but  we  can  fancy  the  comedy  of  the  situation 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOS^;    I      fiOi 

in  which  he  had  so  delightfully  outwitted  the 
Philistines  proving  an  exhilarating  tonic  to 
him.  As  he  chuckled  to  himself,  his  nerves 
were  soothed.  And  today  in  the  heat  of  a 
discussion  when  fiery  minds  are  clashing  and 
opinions  tenaciously  espoused  are  crashing 
against  each  other,  the  speaker  who,  while 
feeling  intensely  his  conviction,  has  the 
strength  to  phrase  his  thought  playfully, 
not  only  makes  his  cause  stronger,  but 
changes  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  entire 
argument  rages.  Or  when  a  fondly  cher- 
ished enterprise  falls  into  desperate  straits, 
and  its  adherents  are  crushed  and  bowed,  it 
is  not  the  weak  man  but  the  strong,  who 
can  put  the  situation  with  a  light  touch  that 
not  only  relieves  the  strain,  but  in  the 
darkest  moment  will  break  a  small  crack 
through  which  a  ray  of  brightness  finds  its 
way.  There  is  no  surer  test  of  the  posses- 
sion of  divine  power  than  self-control;  and 
there  is  no  more  searching  test  of  self- 
control  than  the  ability  to  let  one's  thoughts 
play.  When  they  are  crowded  and  cramped, 
like  a  wedged  mob  in  a  panic,  they  cannot 
play.  Staying  them  on  God  restores  order, 
and    order    brings    calm    and    buoyancy. 


1G2  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Strange  how  the  deepest  things,  like  our 
touch  with  God,  and  the  lightest  things,  like 
the  surface  ripple  of  humor,  are  inseparably 
connected! 

And  already  we  are  passing  from  what 
may  seem  a  rather  trivial  topic  to  life's  pro- 
foundest  theme.  Classifications  into  sane 
and  lunatic  have  sometimes  been  the  division 
into  human  and  divine.  When  David  was 
classed  as  a  madman  he  was  put  in  distin- 
guished company.  We  have  already  men- 
tioned St.  Paul,  to  whom  Festus  said,  "Paul, 
thou  art  mad";  and  there  is  David's  own 
greater  Son,  of  whom  His  puzzled  and 
annoyed  kinsmen  said,  "He  is  beside  Him- 
self." Had  our  Lord  Jesus,  a  week  before 
Palm  Sunday,  as  He  was  approaching 
Jerusalem,  sent  for  some  eminently  wise 
man  of  affairs,  who  was  sympathetic  with 
Him,  a  man  like  Nicodemus  for  example, 
and  had  He  unfolded  to  him  His  plan  of 
offering  Himself  publicly  to  the  nation  as 
its  Messiah,  letting  them  take  Him,  con- 
demn Him,  hand  Him  over  to  the  Romans 
who  would  crucify  Him,  and  then  from  that 
cross  rule  the  world,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
level-headed  Nicodemus  would  have  looked 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  103 

at  Him  in  blank  amazement,  asked  Him, 
"Are  3'ou  serious?"  and  gone  away  shaking 
his  head,  confident  that  the  Teacher  who  had 
once  made  so  deep  an  impression  on  him, 
and  whose  personality  he  still  found  so 
charming,  had  gone  entirely  out  of  His 
senses.  Saul  of  Tarsus  recalled  how  the 
crucifixion  had  appeared  to  him  when  he 
first  learned  of  it  in  Jerusalem.  The  clever 
pupil  of  Gamaliel  had  been  told  that  a  cer- 
tain Jesus  from  Galilee  had  given  Himself 
out  as  the  Messiah;  had  attracted  a  few 
followers;  had  come  up  to  the  capital  and 
made  an  open  issue  with  the  leaders  of  the 
nation,  so  that  they  had  concluded  that  He 
must  be  silenced  and  discredited;  that  they 
had  succeeded  in  getting  Him  executed; 
but  that  several  hundred  or  even  thousand 
persons  were  going  about  saying  that  He 
was  alive,  alive  with  power;  that  the  cross 
was  His  supreme  act  as  God's  Son ;  and  the 
brilliant  young  student  had  laughed  out 
loud,  "What  foolishness!"  But  the  years 
often  reverse  a  good  many  of  our  opinions ; 
and  the  years  together  with  some  marvellous 
divine  experience  had  completely  changed 
Paul's  mind.     That  foolishness  was  God's 


104  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

doing,  and  the  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser 
than  men.  Paul  was  spending  his  life  being 
called  a  fool,  preaching  the  message  of 
the  cross  as  the  clearest  expression  of 
God's  mind  and  strength,  His  wisdom  and 
power — a  preaching  that  almost  everybody 
pronounced  foolishness. 

Take  the  spirit  of  Calvary  out  of  the  past 
and  show  what  it  implies  today;  point  out 
what  it  demands  in  a  nation's  foreign  rela- 
tions, in  industrial  arrangements,  in  legal 
procedure,  in  business  methods,  in  racial 
relations,  in  family  ideals,  in  personal 
principles;  and  are  there  a  great  many 
people,  are  there  many  of  us,  college  men, 
who  are  entirely  convinced  that  this  is  good 
business,  practical  politics,  savoir  faire, 
expedient  conduct?  What  is  wisdom  and 
what  is  folly  in  this  half-sane,  half-mad 
world  of  ours?  Is  there  anywhere  a  stand- 
ard, an  expression  in  intelligible  form,  of 
the  ultimate  wisdom  on  which  the  entire 
universe  is  based? 

There  are  many  times  when  our  world's 
life  strikes  us  as  calculated  to  be  comedy  to 
Somebody  wiser  than  man.  There  are 
countless  things  we  take  with  the  utmost 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  105 

seriousness  which,  in  some  more  reflective 
mood,  impress  us  as  constituting  a  gigantic 
farce  to  some  big  Gulliver  looking  down  on 
us  LiUiputians.  "It  is  He  that  sitteth  above 
the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabitants 
thereof  are  as  grasshoppers";  and  there  are 
times,  according  to  Jesus,  when  He  who 
sitteth  above  says  to  certain  grasshoppers, 
"Thou  fool."  Yes,  it  might  be  comedy,  if 
it  were  not  something  else.  Look  at  the 
distinguished  members  of  the  Jewish  San- 
hedrin  worrying  their  wives  and  imperilling 
their  health  with  night  sessions  of  their 
august  body — all  serious  to  a  degree  about 
this  dangerous  Pretender  from  Galilee,  who 
is  so  out  of  harmony  with  their  idea  of  the 
fitness  of  things.  Look  at  Pilate  "drest  in 
a  little  brief  authority,"  who,  while  taking 
himself  quite  seriously  and  being  taken 
seriously  by  everybody  else,  blunders 
through  his  official  duties.  Look  at  the 
crowds  of  practical,  moderately  intelligent 
people  flocking  back  from  the  place  of 
execution  telling  one  another  that  this  new 
movement  that  was  making  such  a  stir  has 
certainly  received  its  eflPective  quietus. 
"The  kings  of  the  earth  set  themselves,  and 


106  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

the  rulers  take  counsel  together,  against  the 

Lord  and  against  His  anointed He 

that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh." 
Yes,  there's  comedy  in  it :  but  it  is  too  grim 
for  comedy.  These  sane,  sagacious  humans 
have  driven  nails  in  the  hands  and  feet  of 
the  Son  of  God,  and  wet  the  cross  with  His 
flowing  blood!  It  is  tragedy,  not  comedy; 
there  are  tears  above,  not  laughter. 

But  in  that  act  deep-seeing  men  have 
found  the  disclosure  of  sane  and  insane, 
wisdom  and  folly.  It  is  there  they  have 
seen  most  clearly  the  rationale  of  the 
universe:  "Christ  crucified,  the  wisdom  of 
God." 

Does  the  spirit  of  that  cross  appeal  to  us 
as  so  good  that  it  ought  to  be  true,  so 
glorious  that  we  wish  with  all  our  hearts 
that  it  would  work?  Are  we  prepared  to 
experiment  with  it?  Have  we  experimented 
enough  already  to  have  an  experience  that 
convinces  us  that  it  does  work,  that  it  is  both 
the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  God?  Are  we 
deliberately  taking  our  tangled  social  prob- 
lems and  our  intricate  personal  questions  up 
to  the  summit  of  Calvary,  and  letting  its 
light  make  plain  our  solutions? 


FOOLS  FOR  A  PURPOSE  107 

Those  solutions  will  not  commend  them- 
selves to  everybody.  The  world's  great 
accomplishments  have  all  been  wrought  by 
those  whom  men  thought  unpractical  before- 
hand, and  then  agreed  with,  when  the  results 
were  all  in.  And  for  us  it  is  simply  a  ques- 
tion whether  we  dare  be  "fools  for  Christ's 
sake." 


VII 

REVELATION  BY  CONCEAL- 
MENT 

Mark  4 :  22.  For  there  is  nothing  hid,  save  that 
it  should  be  manifested;  neither  was  anything  made 
secret,  but  that  it  should  come  to  light. 

We  do  not  know  whether  this  is  an 
original  saying  of  our  Lord's,  or  a  common 
proverb  which  He  picked  up  in  the  speech 
of  His  day.  It  is  the  sort  of  truth  that  the 
experience  of  the  race  discovers  and  coins 
into  a  maxim.  The  more  one  tries  to  conceal 
something  the  likelier  it  is  to  be  found  out. 
What  is  told  confidentially  itches  to  be 
repeated.'  But  if  Jesus  did  not  Himself 
mint  this  saying  but  found  it  in  circulation, 
it  is  not  the  same  common  coin  since  He  used 
it.  He  left  nothing  as  He  got  it.  He 
took  the  familiar  words  of  men's  religious 
speech — God,  kingdom,  peace,  joy,  love — 
and  transmuted  them  into  new  words  by 
touching  them  vidth  His  personality:  "My 
God,  My  kingdom.  My  peace.  My  joy,  as 
I  have  loved  you."    His  own  experience  is 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   109 

an  alembic  that  turns  to  gold  all  that  it 
receives.  He  fills  His  sentences  with  some- 
thing from  within  Himself,  so  His  words 
become  spirit  and  life.  He  never  says  any- 
thing just  because  He  has  heard  others  say 
it.  If  He  uses  their  identical  language,  it 
is  to  express  a  truth  which  has  come  to  Him 
as  a  personal  discovery.  All  His  sayings 
are  fragments  of  autobiography.  He  has 
personally  observed  that  this  is  a  world 
in  which  things  are  hidden,  but  hidden 
not  to  stay  concealed,  but  by  their  very 
concealment  to  come  to  clearer  light. 

It  does  not  take  long  to  discover  that 
ours  is  a  world  of  secrets.  Our  curiosity  is 
forever  tantalized  by  happenings  we  cannot 
explain  and  by  hints  which  leave  us  still 
inquiring.  Mr.  Bagehot,  in  his  essay  on 
Clough,  writes:  "Undeniably  this  is  an  odd 
world,  whether  it  should  have  been  so  or  no ; 
and  all  our  speculations  upon  it  should  begin 
with  some  admission  of  its  strangeness  and 
singularity."  But  we  instinctively  rebel  at 
mystery.  We  want  to  know,  and  we  feel 
that  we  have  a  right  to  know.  Generation 
after  generation  of  men  have  tried  to  tear 
aside  the  veils,  pry  into  the  unlighted  nooks 


110  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

and  crannies  of  existence,  and  make  all 
things  plain.  They  have  met  with  some 
splendid  successes.  Knowledge  has  grown 
from  more  to  more.  But  the  more  men 
know  the  more  they  see  remains  unknown. 
Some  have  grown  desperate  in  the  presence 
of  the  Sphinx-like  secretiveness  of  the  uni- 
verse. Heine  protested  that  the  world  was 
"an  age-long  riddle  which  only  fools  expect 
to  solve."  George  Gissing  makes  Henry 
Ryecroft  write  in  his  Private  Papers:  "It 
may  well  be  that  what  we  call  the  unknow- 
able will  be  for  ever  the  unknown.  In  that 
thought  is  there  not  a  pathos  beyond  words? 
It  may  be  that  the  human  race  will  live  and 
pass  away;  all  mankind,  from  him  who  in 
the  world's  dawn  first  shaped  to  his  fearful 
mind  an  image  of  the  Lord  of  life,  to  him 
who,  in  the  dusking  twilight  of  the  last  age, 
shall  crouch  before  a  deity  of  stone  or  wood ; 
and  never  one  of  that  long  lineage  have 
learned  the  wherefore  of  his  being.  The 
prophets,  the  martyrs,  their  noble  anguish 
vain  and  meaningless;  the  wise  whose 
thought  strove  to  eternity,  and  was  but 
an  idle  dream;  the  pure  in  heart  whose  life 
was  a  vision  of  the  living  God,  the  suffering 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   111 

and  the  mourners  whose  solace  was  in  a 
world  to  come,  the  victims  of  injustice  who 
cried  to  the  Judge  Supreme — all  gone  down 
into  silence,  and  the  globe  that  bare  them 
circling  dead  and  cold  through  soundless 
space." 

But  this  is  the  direct  opposite  of  the  faith 
of  Jesus.  He  assents  to  the  statement  that 
our  world  is  secretive;  but  He  feels  the 
mystery  no  burden.  Life's  imintelligible 
aspects  are  no  weary  and  heavy  weight  to 
Him.  "It  is  what  we  should  expect,"  He 
assures  us.  "It  is  My  Father's  way  of  tell- 
ing things  by  making  secrets  of  them;  to 
show  them  to  us  more  plainly  by  hiding 
them  away."  He  would  have  liked  Walter 
Pater's  fine  phrase,  "the  hiddenness  of 
perfect  things,"  and  He  would  have  gone 
further  and  asserted  that  they  were  hidden 
not  to  prevent  us  from  getting  at  them  but 
(strange  as  it  may  seem)  in  order  to  help 
us  to  reach  them. 

Take  nature,  for  instance,  and  what  a 
vast  hiding-place  it  has  proved  I  "There  is 
no  new  thing  under  the  sun,"  in  the  sense 
of  being  formed  for  the  first  time  today. 
Our  latest   novelty  has   existed   from  the 


112  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

beginning,  and  was  latent  in  the  frame  of 
things.  It  has  been  lying  in  the  dark  wait- 
ing for  our  hands  to  lift  it  to  the  light.  As 
parents,  who  on  Christmas  Eve  have  filled 
their  children's  stockings,  grow  almost 
impatient  if  the  child  next  morning  spends 
too  much  time  over  the  first  thing  he  pulls 
out,  and  long  to  see  him  go  further  in  and 
get  at  the  better  things  they  have  stowed 
away  in  the  toe,  so  one  can  fancy  God 
eagerly  waiting  through  the  ages  to  see  His 
children  bring  out  one  and  another  good 
gift  He  has  af oreprepared  for  them.  How 
delighted  He  must  be  when  investigators 
happen  on  some  device  that  will  lessen  the 
sufferings  of  the  sick,  or  discover  a  principle 
that  will  enable  men  to  distribute  more 
justly  earth's  riches  and  make  joy  in  wider 
commonalty  shared,  or  arrange  some  con- 
trivance to  relieve  laborious  drudgery,  or 
apply  His  spirit  to  some  relations  in  life  in 
which  they  had  been  acting  selfishly  before ! 
Ah,  but  why,  if  He  is  so  anxious  to  have 
them  find  all  these  things  out,  has  He  been 
at  such  pains  to  conceal  them  that  it  has 
taken  centuries,  yes,  untold  aeons,  to  uncover 
them?    Had  they  all  been  perfectly  plain. 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   113 

what  would  men  have  done  with  them?  We 
let  a  child  make  pothooks  with  a  pencil  or 
a  bit  of  chalk  before  we  give  him  a  fountain 
pen  or  a  typewriter.  He  must  find  out  and 
appreciate  what  letters  are,  and  what  he  can 
do  with  them,  before  we  facilitate  his  making 
them.  Give  him  a  typewriter  to  start  with, 
and  he  will  break  it  in  attempting  to  play 
with  it,  and  perhaps  hurt  himself  with  some 
of  the  broken  pieces.  When  he  has  a  worthy 
idea  of  what  to  do  with  it,  then  it  can  be 
safely  put  in  his  hands.  Had  all  the 
devices  of  modern  surgery  been  known  to 
the  American  Indians  or  to  the  Spanish 
Inquisitors,  how  many  times  more  hellish 
might  they  have  made  their  tortures!  The 
wonder  is  that  God  allowed  His  children 
to  know  so  much,  when  they  used  their 
knowledge  for  such  deviltry.  But  the  point 
is  that  by  hiding  things  in  nature  He  has 
not  permanently  kept  them  from  us,  but 
put  them  at  our  disposal.  If  they  had  been 
easier  to  get  at,  we  should  not  have  mastered 
them  nearly  so  well.  All  the  experiments 
which  failed  went  to  equip  the  experimenter 
who  succeeded  with  skill  to  make  the  most 
of  his  discovery. 


114  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

There  are  no  locked  closets  in  our  Father's 
house  into  which  we  are  forbidden  to  go. 
Every  door  has  a  key;  and  we  find  the  key 
as  soon  as  we  can  profitably  use  the  contents 
of  the  closets.  A  Prometheus  who  discovers 
some  boon  for  his  fellow  mortals  is  not 
punished  for  his  boldness  by  an  angry  deity. 
He  may  not  be  well  treated  by  his  neighbors 
whom  he  is  seeking  to  bless ;  we  have  a  way 
of  crucifying  innovators  on  crosses  of  criti- 
cism or  worse;  but  God  is  never  offended. 
He  takes  care  that  no  light  is  ever  eclipsed 
by  darkness,  no  love  holden  permanently  of 
prejudice.  There  are  no  rooms  in  the  house 
of  many  mansions  He  is  not  glad  to  have 
us  explore.  Our  Father  wants  us  to  know. 
We  dishonor  Him  by  supposing  that  He  is 
ever  pleased  when  we  take  ignorance  for 
piety  and  fold  our  hands  before  a  mystery, 
saying,  "I  accept  it,  but  do  not  presume  to 
try  to  understand  it."  "Prove  all  things." 
He  has  hidden  them  only  to  pique  our 
curiosity.  "There  is  nothing  hid,  save  that 
it  should  be  manifested;  neither  was  any- 
thing made  secret,  but  that  it  should  come 
to  light." 

So  too  in  Jesus'  own  parables  (and  Mark 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   115 

connects  this  saying  in  his  Gospel  with 
Jesus'  parables),  as  in  nature,  from  which 
Jesus  has  drawn  them,  the  purpose  of  the 
story  is  not  to  conceal  truth  but  to  make  it 
plainer.  Tell  a  man  something  outright 
and  he  says,  "I  understand;  that's  clear  as 
day,"  and  excuses  himself  from  further 
thought  upon  it.  Put  it  in  a  tale  that  sug- 
gests more  than  it  actually  says,  and  his 
interest  is  awakened.  Christians,  who  take 
their  Master  seriously  and  try  to  think  out 
what  His  teachings  mean  for  them  today, 
are  often  disappointed.  "Why  did  not 
Jesus  take  up  this  question  that  puzzles  me? 
Why  did  not  He  make  what  He  expected 
of  us  entirely  clear?  How  am  I  to  know 
what  as  a  Christian  I  am  to  do  under  these 
circumstances?  How  unsatisfactory  to 
have  a  handful  of  picturesque  stories,  and 
a  few  sayings,  like  turning  the  other  cheek, 
and  letting  your  coat  go  with  your  cloak, 
and  walking  the  second  mile,  and  being  salt, 
and  light,  and  leaven,  and  sheep,  and 
friends,  and  brethrerx,  and  little  children, 
as  our  sole  guide  to  the  intricate  conditions 
in  which  we  are  placed  I"  Yes,  but  the 
Light  of  life,  the  solution  of  every  per- 


116  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

plexity  is  hid  in  these  few  words;  and  the 
answer  to  each  question  comes  out  when  we 
need  it  and  can  employ  it.  The  very  fact 
that  it  requires  hard  thinking  on  our  part 
to  reason  out  exactly  what  it  means  to  be 
salt,  and  light,  and  leaven,  to  be  a  friend  of 
Christ  and  a  child  of  God,  in  this  position 
and  in  that  relation,  enables  us  when  we 
arrive  at  our  conclusions  to  act  with  an 
independence  and  an  assurance  we  could 
never  otherwise  have  possessed.  "I  have 
conscientiously  thought  this  thing  through, 
and  my  mind  is  made  up."  It  is  not  an 
inviting  prospect  for  the  intellectually 
indolent.  Jesus  never  says,  "Come  unto 
Me,  all  ye  who  are  too  lazy  to  think  for 
yourselves."  He  tells  us  frankly  that  He 
is  hiding  His  meaning  in  His  words  and 
that  we  will  have  to  stir  up  our  minds  to 
search  it  out.  But  that  will  help  us  master 
the  answer.  "There  is  nothing  hid,  save 
that  it  should  be  manifested;  neither  was 
anything  made  secret,  but  that  it  should 
come  to  light." 

Or  take  Jesus  Himself.  We  are  about 
to  celebrate  again  His  birth  as  the  child  of 
Galilean  peasants  who  were  lodged  in  a 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   117 

barn.  It  would  seem  as  though  God  had  put 
the  light  of  the  world  under  a  bushel  and  not 
on  a  lampstand.  One  can  look  in  through 
our  text  to  a  long  chapter  in  the  thought 
of  Jesus.  As  He  grew  to  manhood  and 
gradually  became  aware  of  His  life-purpose 
must  He  not  often  have  asked  Himself, 
"Why  was  I  so  humbly  born?  Why  had  I 
no  greater  advantages  in  education?  Why 
have  I  been  set  for  these  thirty  years  in  this 
out-of-the-way  town  of  Nazareth?"  And 
when  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  them  swam  within  His  ken,  and 
He  realized  that  He  had  a  meaning  and  a 
message  for  them,  that  He  was  a  Light  to 
lighten  the  Gentiles,  His  Kingdom  leaven 
to  transform  the  whole  mass  of  humanity, 
how  hard  it  must  have  been  for  Him  to  hide 
Himself  in  the  little  villages  of  Galilee! 
On  what  assurance  did  He  rest  His  expec- 
tation of  achieving  His  purpose  and  becom- 
ing the  Messiah  through  whom  God's 
world-kingdom  is  set  up?  The  text  gives 
us  His  conviction,  the  conviction  by  which 
He  deliberately  confined  Himself  to  a  small 
world  and  hid  Himself  in  a  few  dozen 
people,  into  whom  He  succeeded  in  breath- 


118  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

ing  His  Spirit.  "There  is  nothing  hid,  save 
that  it  should  come  to  light."  If  a  thing 
was  perfect,  let  it  be  hidden,  it  would  not 
be  obscured.  Let  Him  do  one  thing  thor- 
oughly, and  the  excellence  of  what  He  had 
done  would  ensure  its  own  notoriety.  Let 
Him  hide  Himself  in  Matthew  and  John 
and  Peter,  and  He  would  come  to  the  blaze 
of  noonday  in  renewed  lives,  in  Gospel 
pages,  in  sheep  for  whom  undershepherds 
gave  their  lives,  in  the  regeneration  of  all 
things  into  love  like  His  own. 

Or  take  Jesus  as  He  appears  to  us.  If 
we  attempt  to  get  back  to  Him  and  see  the 
Figure  that  moved  among  men,  what  do 
we  find?  A  Man  at  many  points  the  product 
of  His  age,  with  the  world-view  of  His 
contemporaries,  ascribing  certain  forms  of 
disease  and  insanity  to  demons,  as  we  would 
not  ascribe  them  with  our  scientific  knowl- 
edge today ;  a  Jew,  with  the  intense  feelings 
of  His  race  for  Jerusalem  and  the  national 
destiny;  a  GaHlean  carpenter,  with  the  out- 
look of  His  class  and  with  no  apparent 
interest  in  culture,  in  art,  in  music,  in  states- 
manship, in  countless  areas  of  man's  high 
development.      As  we  look  closer  we  are 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   119 

astonished  to  find  in  this  Mind,  so  largely 
filled  with  the  thoughts  common  to  the  men 
of  His  day,  a  wisdom  that  we  never  seem 
to  overpass ;  in  this  Jew,  a  world  Soul  with 
limitless  sympathies  and  unbounded  pur- 
poses; in  this  Peasant  and  Mechanic,  a 
Spirit  which  seems  native  to  every  sphere 
of  culture  and  human  activity,  so  that  we 
feel  no  violence  in  associating  Him  with  art, 
with  music,  with  science,  and  with  every 
thing  true,  lovely  and  honorable,  whether  it 
came  within  His  range  of  vision  in  His  life- 
time or  not.  But  the  Mind,  the  Soul,  the 
Spirit,  seem  hidden  in  the  first-century 
Jewish  artisan.  But  why  hidden?  If  the 
Word,  the  Light,  the  Life,  the  Love  of  God, 
were  to  be  conmiunicated  to  men,  how  could 
God  accomplish  it  more  effectively  than  by 
compressing  all  into  a  human  life?  And 
if  this  life  be  really  human,  not  simply 
masquerading  here  as  human,  it  must  be  the 
life  of  a  Man  of  a  particular  age,  nation  and 
class.  When  the  Word  was  made  flesh, 
there  was  a  hiding  of  God's  power.  We 
can  be  so  occupied  with  the  flesh  that  we  see 
nothing  through  it.  But  the  hiding  is  really 
not  to  conceal  but  to  reveal,  to  manifest  the 


120  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

eternal  life,  which  is  God's  own  life  and 
which  His  children  can  share  with  Him,  the 
life  of  trust,  of  hope,  of  devotion  to  the 
great  purpose  of  the  Kingdom  of  love. 

Or,  to  take  but  one  other  instance,  God 
Himself  seems  very  elusive,  reticent,  secre- 
tive. If  He  wants  the  company  of  like- 
minded  children,  why  is  it  so  easy  for  us  to 
live  without  having  His  presence  obtruded 
upon  us,  without  even  suspecting  that  He 
exists  at  all?  If  we  look  for  Him,  is  He 
not  always  concealed?  We  say  we  know 
Him  as  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  but 
how  He  hides  His  shaping  hands  under- 
neath processes  of  evolution,  chains  of 
causes,  one  thing  leading  to  another,  so  that 
it  is  hard  to  disentangle  Him  from  that 
which  is  not  He!  We  say  we  see  Him  in 
providence,  in  His  ordering  of  the  events 
of  our  lives;  but,  when  we  look  for  Him, 
here  are  coincidences,  chance  happenings, 
our  own  skill,  someone's  loving  thought  of 
us — a  whole  network  of  occurrences  in 
which  we  cannot  distinguish  His  part  from 
ours  and  our  neighbors'  and  say,  "There, 
that's  God's  doing;  see  Him  through  that; 
that  shows  what  He  is."    We  say  that  He 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   121 

reveals  Himself  in  the  Bible;  but  the  Bible 
contains  a  great  mixture  of  things  tem- 
porary, like  the  Jewish  Law,  and  things 
eternal,  like  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  of  things 
very  undivine  to  us,  like  the  slaughters  of 
the  Canaanites  and  the  cursing  prayers  of 
some  of  the  psalmists,  and  things  as  divine 
as  the  cross  of  Christ;  what  is  man's  and 
what  is  God's  in  the  inspired  Scriptures? 
God's  word  is  here,  but  hidden  beneath  a 
mass  of  obsolete  science,  faulty  history,  out- 
worn ethics,  crude  theology.  We  say  that 
God  is  in  people  round  about  us,  but  what 
in  them  is  His,  and  what  not? 

He  hides  Himself  within  the  love 
Of  those  whom  we  love  best. 

We  say  that  He  is  in  ourselves,  a  present 
guiding,  strengthening,  sanctifying  Spirit, 
but  in  our  thought  what  is  His  wisdom  and 
what  our  own?  In  our  impulses  what  comes 
from  Him,  and  what  from  ourselves?  In 
our  characters  what  is  of  His  creating  and 
what  is  due  to  our  own  striving  towards 
righteousness? 

Draw,  if  thou  canst,  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  His  from  thine. 
Which  is  human,  which  divine. 


122  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

"Verily,  Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  Thy- 
self, O  God  of  Israel,  the  Saviour." 

Strange  that  if  He  should  wish  to  make 
Himself  known,  to  give  us  His  friendship 
and  admit  us  to  His  intimacy,  He  should 
go  about  it  in  this  roundabout  way,  which 
apparently  leads  as  often  in  the  opposite 
direction!    What  is  the  meaning  of  it? 

You  may  remember  the  character  of 
Nydia,  the  blind  Thessalian  flower  girl,  in 
Bulwer-Lytton's  "Last  Days  of  Pompeii." 
She  is  introduced  to  us  singing  the  pathetic 
song: 

Ye  have  a  world  of  light 

Where  love  in  the  loved  rej  oices ; 
But  the  blind  girl's  home  is  the  House  of  Night, 

And  its  beings  are  empty  voices. 
As  one  in  the  realm  below, 
I  stand  by  the  streams  of  woe ! 
I  hear  the  vain  shadows  glide, 
I  feel  their  soft  breath  at  my  side. 

And  I  thirst  the  loved  forms  to  see. 
And  I  stretch  my  fond  arms  around. 
And  I  catch  but  a  shapeless  sound. 

For  the  living  are  ghosts  to  me. 

Through  the  events  of  the  story  she  passes 
in  sadness,  cut  off  by  her  blindness  from  all 


I 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   123 

her  heart  desires.  Then  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  narrative  comes  that  fateful  day 
when  Vesuvius  breaks  forth,  and  the  doomed 
city  is  dark  as  midnight  beneath  the  thick 
pall  of  smoke  and  falling  ashes,  and  the 
terror-stricken  inhabitants  rush  blindly  and 
stumble  and  lose  themselves  in  the  awful 
blackness;  but  Nydia,  from  whose  sightless 
eyes  the  light  has  always  been  hidden, 
threads  her  way  unerringly  through  the 
streets  and  squares  of  the  town,  and  rescues 
her  beloved. 

God's  hiding  of  Himself  develops  our 
instinct  for  Him,  the  sense  of  touch  with 
which  we  become  aware  of  His  presence,  the 
sensitive  hearing  which  enables  us  to  dis- 
tinguish His  voice  amid  the  confusion  of 
sounds,  the  inward  sight  which  sees  Him, 
however  many  the  other  objects  in  the  same 
field  of  vision.  God's  self-concealment  is 
not  to  keep  away  from  us,  but  to  teach  us 
more  surely  to  detect  and  find  Him.  For 
the  moment  He  seems  to  wrap  Himself  in 
clouds  and  darkness,  only  that  our  sight  may 
be  sharpened  to  pierce  clouds  and  see  Him, 
who  dwelleth  in  light  unapproachable  save 
by  eyes  lit  with  trustful  love. 


124  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Jesus  never  said  anything  without  telling 
us  something  about  God.  His  Father  was 
the  one  topic  of  His  conversation,  and  this 
saying  is  no  exception.  Jesus,  as  we,  walked 
by  faith,  and  not  by  sight.  There  were 
times  when  God  was  hidden  from  Him;  but 
He  knew  that  the  hiding  was  solely  for  pur- 
poses of  discovery.  "Thy  Father  who  is  in 
secret,"  He  called  Him.  Take  the  supreme 
instance  when  on  the  cross  darkness  is  over 
all  the  land,  and  darkness  actually  shrouds 
the  soul  of  the  sinless  Son  of  God,  so  that 
His  Father  is  veiled  from  Him,  and  He 
cries,  "Forsaken."  But  God  is  never  hid, 
save  that  He  should  be  manifested;  neither 
is  He  ever  Himself  secret,  but  that  He 
should  come  to  light.  Jesus'  faith  faced  the 
darkness  as  an  obscuring  of  God  only  to 
make  Him  plainer,  and  prayed,  "My  God, 
My  God,"  in  the  very  breath  that  He  had 
to  confess  His  sense  of  desertion.  And  that 
exercise  of  faith  still  further  sharpens  His 
sense  for  the  divine;  purifies  (if  we  dare 
say  it)  even  His  stainless  heart;  so  that  with 
keener  eyesight  He  sees  God.  "Father,  into 
Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit."  Jesus' 
lifelong  conviction  is  justified.      God  has 


REVELATION  BY  CONCEALMENT   125 

withdrawn  Himself  only  to  be  more  surely- 
found,  concealed  Himself  only  to  be  more 
clearly  seen  as  One  who  is  light,  and  in 
whom  is  no  darkness  at  all. 


VIII 
THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY 

Acts  9:  7.  The  men  that  journeyed  with  him  stood 
speechless,  hearing  the  sound,  but  beholding  no  man. 

Acts  22:  9.  They  that  were  with  me  beheld  indeed 
the  light,  but  they  heard  not  the  voice  of  Him  that 
spake  to  me. 

From  Christianity's  earliest  days  it  has 
been  the  custom  to  point  to  Jesus'  resurrec- 
tion as  a  convincing  proof  of  His  Messiah- 
ship,  a  compelling  argument  for  believing 
in  Him.  But  today  probably  no  one 
becomes  a  follower  of  Jesus  on  account 
of  His  resurrection.  Nobody  believes  in 
the  fact  of  the  resurrection  unless  he  has 
for  some  other  reason  come  to  beheve  in 
Jesus.  And  this  seems  exactly  what  Jesus 
Himself  expected.  In  His  parable  when 
Dives  in  torments  pleads  that  Abraham 
will  send  the  beggar  Lazarus  to  warn  his 
brothers,  urging,  "If  one  go  to  them  from 
the  dead,  they  will  surely  repent";  Jesus 
makes  Abraham  reply,  "If  they  hear  not 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         127 

be  persuaded,  if  one  rise  from  the  dead." 
Jesus  did  not  think  that  any  who  had  not 
been  convinced  by  His  teaching,  which  was 
the  fulfillment  and  completion  of  all  that 
was  true  in  Moses  and  the  prophets,  would 
be  persuaded  by  His  rising.  This  accounts 
for  one  puzzling  feature  of  His  recorded 
appearances:  He  does  not  seem  to  have 
manifested  Himself  to  any  man,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Paul,  who  was  not 
already  His  follower.  We  must  often  have 
wondered  why  He  did  not  show  Himself  to 
the  Sanhedrin  who  condemned  Him,  to 
Pilate  and  Herod  and  the  soldiers.  What 
better  start  could  He  have  given  His  cause 
in  the  world  than  by  gaining  over  the  very 
men  who  were  responsible  for  His  cruci- 
fixion? What  a  force  in  founding  the 
Christian  Church  in  Jerusalem  Caiaphas, 
the  converted  high  priest,  would  have  been, 
and  how  effective  Pilate  would  have  proved 
as  an  apostle  to  Rome!  But  it  is  to  His 
disciples  only  that  He  returns.  Even  the 
five  hundred  whom  Paul  mentions  are  called 
"brethren,"  indicating  that  they  were 
already  adherents  of  His  cause.  The  only 
man  who  belonged  to  the  ranks  of  His 


128  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

opponents  to  whom  He  manifested  Himself 
is  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  pupil  of  Gamaliel  and 
agent  of  the  Sanhedrin  in  persecuting  the 
devotees  of  this  new  Way;  so  that  his  con- 
version has  a  special  interest.  But  did  Jesus 
really  alter  His  method  and  hy  a  marvellous 
occurrence  convince  an  otherwise  wholly 
hostile  man? 

Something  startling  happened  on  the  road 
to  Damascus.  It  was  seen  and  heard  hy 
Saul  and  his  companions;  all  saw  a  light 
and  heard  a  sound;  but  to  Saul  of  Tarsus 
it  was  an  entirely  different  experience  than 
to  his  fellow  travellers.  They  saw  the  light ; 
he  saw  the  Figure  of  Jesus.  They  heard  a 
confused  noise;  he  heard  a  voice  speaking 
personally  to  him.  How  much  of  that 
experience  took  place  within  his  own  mind, 
and  how  much  was  seen  and  heard  by  his 
senses,  he  could  probably  never  have  told. 
When  he  wrote  of  it  to  the  Galatians,  he 
said,  "It  was  the  good  pleasure  of  God  to 
reveal  His  Son  in  me"  The  noise  they 
heard  and  the  light  they  saw  appear  to  have 
made  no  religious  impression  on  Saul's 
escort;  in  spite  of  the  transformation  in 
their  leader  they  do  not  seem  to  have  become 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         129 

Christians;  but  Saul  of  Tarsus  underwent 
a  change  that  completely  altered  his  career, 
and  has  left  an  indelible  impress  upon  the 
history  of  mankind.  The  same  light  and 
the  same  noise — what  different  results! 

^Vhen  Paul  looked  back  on  his  experience, 
he  did  not  emphasize  its  suddenness.  He 
writes  that  "it  was  the  good  pleasure  of  God 
who  separated  me  from  my  mother's  womb, 
and  called  me  by  His  grace."    This  seemed 

a  day  to  which  all  days 
Were  footsteps  in  God's  secret  ways. 

His  mind  had  already  been  appealed  to  by 
something  in  the  message  of  this  Jesus,  for 
he  was  kicking  against  the  goad  in  rejecting 
Him.  So  that  Paul's  case  is  not  really 
different  from  that  of  the  others.  His 
conscience  had  already  been  laid  hold  of,  and 
the  assurance  that  Jesus  was  alive  in  power 
simply  completed  the  conversion  of  his 
reason. 

All  this  is  most  interesting  as  shedding 
light  on  the  question  of  religious  belief  and 
unbelief.  Our  world  is  the  same  for  every- 
body, with  the  same  day  and  night,  work 
and   play,   sickness   and   health,   joy   and 


130  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

sorrow,  life  and  death.  The  differences 
between  the  lots  of  individuals  are  insignifi- 
cant as  compared  with  the  sameness  of  that 
which  is  everybody's.  But  there  are  two 
very  different  interpretations  of  it.  To  one 
set  of  people  the  world  is  just  the  world; 
they  take  it  as  they  find  it,  enjoy  what  is 
pleasant  and  grumble  at  what  is  otherwise, 
use  according  to  their  capacity  the  stock  of 
wisdom  they  inherit  from  the  experiences 
of  their  predecessors,  and  go  through  life 
and  into  death  without  any  sense  of  the 
existence  of  an  Invisible  Companion.  To 
others  the  world  is  not  just  the  world,  but 
the  world  and  its  invisible  but  most  real 
Lord,  from  whom  they  accept  its  arrange- 
ments, to  whom  they  ascribe  the  inspiration 
of  the  wisest  and  best  thoughts  they  find  in 
their  own  or  other  men's  minds,  and  in  whose 
personal  friendship  they  pass  through  life 
and  into  death  with  a  vivid  anticipation  of 
something  beyond.  How  is  it  that  the 
same  set  of  facts  conveys  such  different 
impressions  ? 

You  may  recall  the  scene  in  the  tavern 
in  "Silas  Marner"  where  the  village  worthies 
discuss  the  credibility  of  ghosts. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         131 

"There's  folks,  i'  my  opinion,"  says  the 
landlord,  "they  can't  see  ghos'es,  not  if  they 
stood  as  plain  as  a  pike-staff  before  'em. 
And  there's  reason  i'  that.  For  there's  my 
wife,  now,  can't  smell,  not  if  she'd  the 
strongest  o'  cheese  under  her  nose.  I  never 
see'd  a  ghost  myself;  but  then  I  says  to 
myself,  *Very  like  I  haven't  got  the  smell 
for  'em.'  " 

"Tut,  tut,"  answers  the  farrier,  "what's 
the  smell  got  to  do  with  it?  If  ghos'es  want 
me  to  believe  in  'em,  let  'em  leave  off  skulk- 
ing i'  the  dark  and  i'  lone  places:  let  'em 
come  where  there's  company  and  candles." 

There  are  similar  attitudes  towards  God. 
Some  people  with  a  taste  for  Him  stoutly 
declare  His  reality;  while  others  insist  that, 
if  God  wants  them  to  believe  in  Him,  He 
ought  to  disclose  Himself  so  plainly  that 
there  could  be  no  mistaking  Him.  They 
resent  this  uncertainty.  "Facts  are  facts," 
they  remind  us.  "There  is  no  difference  of 
opinion  about  the  warmth  of  sunlight  or  the 
wetness  of  rain.  The  sun  shines  on  the  evil 
and  the  good,  and  the  rain  falls  on  just  and 
unjust.  Why  should  not  God,  if  He  exists, 
make   Himself   equally   indisputable?     If 


132  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  and  is  alive  with 
power,  why  should  not  all  see  His  form  and 
hear  His  voice?" 

Apples  have  tumbled  from  trees  ever 
since  Eve  in  Eden  was  tempted  by  one  of 
them ;  but  none  seems  to  have  suggested  any- 
thing momentous  until  in  the  garden  at 
Woolsthorpe  one  fell  into  a  mind  teeming 
with  thought  and  brought  to  Newton  the 
discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  A 
square  yellow  book,  a  hundred  and  sixty- 
seven  years  old,  small  quarto  size,  with 
crumpled  vellum  covers,  part  print,  part 
manuscript,  containing  the  record  of  the 
sordid  murder  of  a  young  wife  and  her  two 
reputed  parents  by  a  vicious  husband  and 
four  desperadoes,  must  have  been  fingered 
by  many  hands  and  scanned  by  many  undis- 
cerning  pairs  of  eyes  as  it  lay  with  a  lot  of 
old  and  new  trash  on  a  stall  on  a  step  of  the 
Ricardi  Palace  in  the  Square  of  San 
Lorenzo  in  Florence,  until  one  fiercely  hot 
June  day  in  1865  an  English  poet  picked 
it  up  and  got  it  for  sixteen  cents,  and  in  his 
heart  and  mind  full  of  insight  and  sympathy, 
learning  and  genuis,  its  tale  became  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book" — perhaps  the  greatest 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         133 

creation  of  our  literature  in  the  century. 
Insignificant  falling  apples  and  insignificant 
second-hand  books  suddenly  assume  mar- 
vellous meaning  when  they  catch  a  seeing 
eye.  The  law  of  gravitation  ought  to  have 
been  patent  to  everybody;  but  it  was  not, 
until  a  prepared  mind  saw  it  in  a  flash  of 
insight.  The  fact  that  every  individual  in 
a  story  has  a  distinctive  point  of  view  of  his 
own  ought  to  have  been  plain  to  everyone; 
but  it  never  received  its  due  expression  until 
the  genius  for  sympathy  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing embodied  it  in  his  incomparable  dozen 
cycles.  The  fact  that  the  cause  of  Jesus 
could  not  be  beaten,  that  Jesus  Himself 
could  not  be  killed  and  banished  from  God's 
earth,  ought  to  have  been  clear  to  everyone ; 
but  it  was  only  the  faith  of  the  disciples  and 
the  mastered  conscience  of  Saul  of  Tarsus 
that  made  the  discovery.  The  reality  of 
God  should  have  been  obvious  to  everybody ; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  history,  there  have 
always  been  believers  and  sceptics. 

There  was  a  close  friendship  between 
Thomas  Huxley  and  Professor  Haughton, 
although  they  stood  far  apart  in  religious 
conviction.     Haughton,   before  his   death. 


134  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

told  of  a  conversation  with  Huxley  in  which 
the  latter  said  to  him :  "There  are  those  who 
profess  to  believe  what  I  consider  false ;  but 
I  do  not  regard  their  opinions,  because  I 
doubt  the  sincerity  of  some  and  the  intel- 
lectual capacity  of  others ;  but  I  respect  you, 
and  I  know  how  sincerely  you  believe  what 
you  hold  so  strongly,  and  should  like  very 
much  to  know  how  it  is  that  you  believe  what 
I  can't  believe."  "May  I  speak  frankly?" 
asked  Haughton.  "Certainly."  "Then,"  he 
said,  "I  don't  know  how  it  is,  except  that 
you  are  color-blind."  Huxley  was  much 
struck.  "Well,  it  may  be  so.  Of  course,  if 
I  were  color-blind,  I  should  not  know  it 
myself."  "The  men  that  were  with  him 
stood  speechless,  hearing  the  sound,  but 
beholding  no  man."  "They  that  were  with 
me  beheld  indeed  the  light,  but  they  heard 
not  the  voice  of  him  that  spake  to  me." 

This  may  be  very  depressing.  If  faith 
is  a  peculiar  faculty  which  some  possess  and 
others  lack,  then  a  man  either  has  or  hasn't 
it,  and  if  he  hasn't  it,  he  must  content  him- 
self with  seeing  a  blurring  light  where 
others  have  a  vision  of  God  in  Christ,  and 
with  hearing  a  confused  noise  in  what  to 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         136 

others  is  the  personal  call  of  God.  But  our 
religious  sense  like  our  taste  in  literature, 
or  our  conscience,  or  our  appreciation  of 
music,  is  a  developable  instinct.  Goethe  told 
Eckermann,  "I  show  you  only  the  best 
works,  and  when  you  are  grounded  in  these 
you  will  have  a  standard  for  the  rest";  and 
Matthew  Arnold  recommended  us  all  to 
carry  about  in  our  heads  scraps  of  Homer 
and  Virgil,  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  Milton 
and  Keats,  and  whenever  we  are  required 
to  admire  the  worthless  and  extol  the 
commonplace,  to  murmur  these  passages 
under  our  breath  as  a  kind  of  taste  tonic. 
A  correct  conscience  is  not  something  that 
is  born  in  us.  A  small  boy  is  as  likely  to 
arrive  in  the  world  with  a  silk  hat  on  his 
head  as  with  a  proper  sense  of  obligation. 
Father  and  mother,  teachers  and  pastor, 
must  set  themselves  to  educate  him  in 
responsibility,  and  produce  in  him  a  con- 
science that  shall  function  properly  under 
all  life's  complex  circumstances.  Many 
people  prefer  the  latest  popular  melody  to 
Beethoven  or  Wagner,  but  we  do  not  con- 
sider their  musical  standards  final.  We 
believe  that  education,  contact  with  some- 


136  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

thing  better  suggesting  inevitable  contrasts, 
an  ear  gradually  becoming  more  sensitive 
will  enable  them  to  hear  in  the  masters  of 
sound  what  no  cheap  and  vulgar  hack  who 
tosses  off  songs  by  the  ream  can  possibly 
furnish.  Religious  faith — the  appreciation 
of  God,  the  sense  of  His  presence,  the  eye 
for  His  goodness  and  the  ear  for  His 
summons  to  duty — can  be  cultivated. 
Saul's  companions  need  not  remain  seers 
only  of  a  light  and  hearers  of  a  noise. 

Edmund  Burke,  in  his  treatise  on  "The 
Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  remarks  that  "it  is 
known  that  the  taste  is  improved  exactly 
as  we  improve  our  judgment  by  extending 
our  knowledge,  by  a  steady  attention  to  our 
object,  and  by  frequent  exercise." 

"By  extending  our  knowledge."  No  man 
can  appreciate  poetry  unless  he  is  fairly 
well  read  in  the  poets.  No  man  can  hope 
for  a  rich  experience  of  God  unless  he  is 
conversant  with  those  great  souls  who  in 
the  past  have  walked  closely  with  Him. 
And  no  man  is  justified  in  saying  that  he 
sees  nothing  in  religion  until  he  has  famil- 
iarized himself  with  the  God  of  Jesus, 
asked  open-mindedly  what  Jesus  actually 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         137 

believed  He  got  out  of  the  Unseen.  To 
extend  our  knowledge  of  the  God  of  Moses 
and  Elijah,  of  Amos  and  Hosea,  of  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah,  of  the  psalmists,  the  histo- 
rians, the  wise  men  of  Israel,  of  God  seen 
through  Jesus  by  the  evangelists  and  letter 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  is  to  go  a 
long  way  towards  awakening  and  strength- 
ening in  ourselves  that  instinct  which  sees 
Him  who  is  invisible.  And  as  Rosalind 
says,  "The  sight  of  lovers  feedeth  those  in 
love";  so  familiarity  with  believers  feedeth 
those  in  faith. 

"By  a  steady  attention  to  our  object." 
Does  the  Christian  God  appeal  to  us  as 
desirable?  Would  we  prefer  His  existence 
to  His  non-existence?  Would  we  care  to 
live  in  a  world  with  Him?  If  we  really 
believed  in  Him,  it  would  certainly  make 
vast  differences  in  our  modes  of  life,  in  our 
plans  for  our  careers,  in  our  attitude  towards 
all  sorts  of  questions,  in  the  risks  we  were 
prepared  to  take,  in  the  things  we  would 
absolutely  refuse  to  do.  Would  the  God 
of  Jesus  be  convenient  or  inconvenient  to 
us?  Do  we  honestly  want  to  believe  in 
Him,  provided  we  sincerely  can?    No  one 


138  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

will  give  "a  steady  attention"  to  the  search 
for  God  unless  he  is  desperately  eager  to 
be  sure  of  Him;  and  it  has  been  the  expe- 
rience of  many  centuries  that  nobody  ever 
sought  God  with  his  whole  heart  and  failed 
to  find  Him.  It  requires  a  venture.  Faith 
is  a  matter  of  daring.  One  must  be  prepared 
to  risk  trying  love  as  the  ultimate  wisdom 
and  the  final  force  in  the  universe,  precisely 
as  Jesus  took  the  supreme  risk  of  Calvary. 
And  without  this  "steady  attention  to  our 
object"  there  is  no  reason  for  imagining  that 
God  will  become  palpably  evident  to  us. 

"And  by  frequent  exercise."  Paul  told 
King  Agrippa  that  he  had  not  been  dis- 
obedient unto  his  heavenly  vision.  If  he 
had,  it  is  likely  that  he  would  have  some  day 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  his  companions, 
and  not  he,  were  right.  There  had  been  a 
blinding  light  and  a  bewildering  noise,  but 
it  might  have  been  any  one  of  half  a  dozen 
occurrences  that  are  liable  to  take  place  any 
time  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  What  con- 
vinced Paul  was  the  life  into  which  his 
vision  led  him.  People  might  tell  him  that 
he  had  had  a  sunstroke;  but  he  knew  that, 
sunstroke  or  something  else,  he  had  been 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         139 

led  into  a  career  of  usefulness ;  that  life  had 
assumed  a  new  meaning  and  fascination  for 
him;  that  depths  of  joy  and  peace  and 
strength  and  hope  had  been  opened  up ;  that 
he  had  passed  into  a  friendship  he  could 
only  adequately  describe  by  saying  that  he 
knew  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ. 
As  he  obeyed  the  impulses  that  came  upon 
him  with  mastering  force  in  that  hour  of 
his  prostration,  life  disclosed  its  unsearch- 
able riches  for  him.  He  saw  and  kept 
seeing  what  he  had  been  blind  to  until  now. 
He  felt  and  kept  feeling  a  vitality  and  an 
energy  and  a  kindling  passion  which  sent 
him  over  land  and  sea  with  power.  He 
heard  and  kept  hearing  the  assuring  voice 
within  saying,  "Abba,  Father,"  and  giving 
him  that  sonship  with  the  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  which  had  been  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  the  Jesus  whose  followers 
he  had  hunted  down  to  death.  However  the 
light  and  the  noise  of  the  Damascus  road 
might  be  explained  physically,  they  had  an 
indubitable  moral  significance.  Christ  had 
been  formed  in  him,  and  it  was  no  longer 
Saul  of  Tarsus  that  lived,  but  a  new  man 
in  Christ  Jesus.    "By  frequent  exercise,"  by 


140  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

unremitting  toil  for  the  Kingdom,  that 
instinct  for  the  living  Christ,  that  faith  in 
His  God  and  Father,  flourished  and  grew 
in  vigor.  Years  after  the  startling  day  on 
the  Damascus  road,  when  life's  experience 
had  turned  in  its  accumulated  evidence,  he 
wrote  confidently,  "I  know  whom  I  have 
believed." 

The  varied  experiences  of  life  may  be 
divinely  significant  or  baldly  meaningless. 
They  may  be  progressive  disclosures  of  the 
face  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  opening  up  for 
us  a  more  and  more  intimate  fellowship  with 
Him,  or  they  may  be  just  a  series  of  happen- 
ings, pleasant  or  the  reverse,  but  revealing 
nothing.  They  may  be  clear  and  distinct 
utterances  of  God  to  us,  guiding,  correcting, 
inspiring — the  articulate  word  of  the  Most 
High,  speaking  as  directly  and  personally 
to  us  and  letting  us  as  intimately  into  His 
friendship  as  the  men  of  faith  of  the  bygone 
generations;  or  they  may  be  the  usual 
rumble  of  the  world's  life,  saying  nothing. 
The  seeing  eye  and  the  hearing  ear  are  for 
us  to  develop.  Whatever  of  God  we  see  in 
any  flash  of  insight,  use,  or  it  will  fade  into 
the  light  of  common  day.     Visions  obeyed 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FACULTY         141 

remain  visions,  the  master  lights  of  all  our 
seeing,  but  disobeyed  they  turn  into  illusions. 
It  is  a  sombre  reflection  that,  after  these 
centuries  of  His  vital  activity  in  the  world, 
Jesus  is  still  dead  to  so  many;  that  the 
living  God  does  not  exist  for  everybody. 
It  lies  within  our  power  to  let  Christ  be  a 
living  factor  in  our  careers,  their  controlling 
force;  to  give  God  the  chance  to  be  really 
God  to  us.  The  same  light  and  the  same 
sound  can  be  so  differently  understood: 

Where  one  heard  thunder,  and  one  saw  flame, 
I  only  know  He  named  my  name. 


IX 

UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY 

2  Kings  6 :  30.  And  the  people  looked,  and,  behold, 
he  had  sackcloth  within  upon  his  flesh. 

It  was  a  great  surprise  to  the  people  of 
Samaria  to  discover  underneath  the  royal 
robes  of  their  king  this  secret  garb  of  mourn- 
ing. As  they  endured  the  frightful  horrors 
of  famine  during  the  siege,  it  had  not 
occurred  to  them  that  he  was  suffering.  So 
long  as  there  was  any  food  in  the  city,  he 
would  surely  have  it.  He  was  keenly 
interested  in  the  game  of  war,  and  they  were 
mere  pawns  on  the  board.  What  did  he 
know  or  care  of  their  distress?  The  two 
women,  who  in  their  starvation  had  entered 
into  this  revolting  compaxjt  to  boil  and  eat 
each  other's  little  boys,  had  thought  to  them- 
selves that  their  dire  condition  was  the 
wretched  plight  of  the  poor.  As  they 
watched  the  king  attended  by  his  guards 
going  his  rounds  upon  the  walls,  they  may 
have  said  to  themselves,  "Little  he  thinks 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         143 

of  what  we  suffer!"  But  when  one  mother's 
love  proved  too  strong  to  let  her  keep  her 
awful  bargain,  and  her  neighbor's  appeal 
for  justice  brought  before  the  king  this  piti- 
ful and  sickening  story,  overwhelmed  with 
horror,  he  rent  his  garments,  and  uncon- 
sciously disclosed  a  heart,  a  heart  that 
entitles  him  to  be  remembered  among  the 
true  kings  of  history,  a  heart  wrung  with 
the  woes  of  his  people:  "Behold,  he  had 
sackcloth  within  upon  his  flesh." 

All  suffering  is  self-centring.  Pain  or 
sorrow  sets  us  apart,  gives  us  a  sense  of 
uniqueness,  concentrates  our  attention  upon 
ourselves,  and  makes  us  appear  quite  in  a 
class  of  our  own.  Every  patient  thinks  his 
a  special  case.  Every  sufferer  feels  there  is 
an  unusual  element  in  his  condition.  Every 
lamentation  runs :  "Behold,  and  see  if  there 
be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow,  which 
is  brought  upon  me!"  And  our  world  is 
so  ordered  in  the  providence  of  God  that 
our  first  discovery  under  such  circumstances 
is,  that  so  far  from  being  singular,  we  are 
members  of  a  great  fraternity  of  fellow 
sufferers.  We  never  have  a  disease  without 
being  astonished  to  find  out  how  many  of 


144  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

our  acquaintances  are  familiar  with  it.  We 
never  meet  with  an  accident  without  reading 
in  the  papers  of  similar  misfortunes  happen- 
ing to  people  all  over  the  country.  We 
never  walk  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
some  loved  one's  death  without  hearing  of 
friends  with  as  sore  a  sorrow.  We  never 
confront  some  terrible  ordeal  without 
learning  of  others  undergoing  a  similar 
strain.  Face  an  operation,  and  it  seems 
that  everyone  you  know  is  in  the  hands  of 
a  surgeon;  have  your  house  robbed,  and 
there  have  been  burglaries  on  every  block; 
suffer  a  nervous  breakdown,  and  the  whole 
world  is  or  has  been  in  a  sanatorium.  Every 
experience  which  appears  to  us  uncommon 
and  unprecedented  proves  an  introduction 
to  a  community  who  greet  us  with  an  under- 
standing we  had  not  in  the  least  anticipated. 
If  misery  likes  company  it  seldom  lacks  it. 
And  there  are  many  who  tell  us  that  they 
have  been  almost  compensated  for  their 
sickness  or  loss  by  the  fellowship  into  which 
it  has  led  them,  and  above  all  by  the  rending 
of  conventional  garments  which  concealed 
men  and  the  uncovering  of  what  lay  beneath. 
It  was  nearly  worth  the  misery  of  a  famine 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         146 

for  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria  to  learn  what 
manner  of  man  their  king  was. 

It  was  his  sudden  emotion  of  horror  that 
betrayed  the  king  into  this  self-revelation. 
He  had  no  idea  of  letting  his  people  know 
that  he  wore  sackcloth  next  his  skin.  Per- 
sons who  feel  keenly  are  usually  uncommu- 
nicative about  themselves.  Someone  has 
said  rather  cynically  that  the  sympathy  of 
most  people  consists  of  a  mixture  of  good 
humor,  curiosity  and  self-importance.  And 
that  sort  of  sympathy  is  ready  enough  to 
advertise  and  invite  people  to  give  it  a 
chance  to  talk  about  itself.  But  men  of 
genuinely  sensitive  feeling  shrink  from 
undressing  their  hearts  in  public.  People 
may  watch  them  every  day  as  they  walk  on 
the  walls  of  life  attending  to  their  duty. 
They  know  that  they  can  go  to  them  in  need 
and  depend  on  them  to  do  justice  to  what- 
ever they  ask  of  them;  but  they  know  very 
little  of  what  is  underneath  the  man's  robe 
of  office.  The  deeper  a  man  is,  the  less 
apparent  is  the  effect  painful  experiences 
have  upon  him.  A  great  rock  thrown  into 
a  mountain  lake  raises  a  momentary  splash 
and  starts  a  series  of  surface  ripples,  but  in 


146  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

a  very  short  while  the  lake  appears  exactly 
as  it  did  before.  The  rock  has  effected  a 
displacement  of  all  the  water  in  the  lake, 
and  it  lies  at  the  bottom  with  its  jagged 
edges  sharp  and  hard,  but  one  would  never 
suspect  it.  In  a  shallow  pool  the  rock  would 
have  remained  protruding  above  the  sur- 
face ;  it  would  be  far  more  conspicuous  than 
the  pool  itself.  We  would  think  of  the  pool 
as  the  pool  with  the  big  rock;  it  would  be 
the  rock  which  gave  it  distinction.  Some 
men's  grief  or  poverty  or  disease  is  the  only 
noticeable  thing  about  them.  Others  are  so 
big  that,  while  we  are  with  them,  we  lose 
sight  of  anything  that  has  befallen  them, 
however  huge.  They  have  the  pain  still 
with  them,  but  it  is  out  of  sight.  The  robes 
they  don  to  pace  their  round  of  duty,  their 
working-clothes,  cover  up  the  sackcloth. 

And  this  is  especially  true  of  people  with 
responsibilities.  It  was  the  king's  business 
to  keep  the  famine-stricken  people  of  that 
beleaguered  city  of  good  heart  and  hope. 
If  he  wore  sackcloth,  he  must  let  nobody 
see  it.  He  might  feel  more  keenly  than  any- 
one else  the  tragic  plight  of  his  capital,  but 
he  dared  not  show  his  feelings.      After  a 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         147 

business  reverse  the  breadwinner  feels  the 
more  need  of  keeping  a  brave  front  and 
carrying  an  undiscouraged  face  home  at 
night,  and  his  wife  considers  that  she  owes 
it  to  him  to  make  the  best  of  ever5rthing  and 
seem  passing  rich  on  her  curtailed  resources. 
Many  a  home  made  wretched  by  wedded 
unhappiness  sees  the  mother  or  father  for 
the  children's  sake  trying  to  go  about  as 
though  nothing  were  wrong,  wearing  the 
sackcloth  under  the  gay  clothes  of  sociability. 
Death  seldom  leaves  us  without  greater 
obligations  to  the  living;  and,  that  their 
lives  be  not  shadowed  and  saddened,  the 
heart's  lonely  mourning  must  be  kept  so 
hidden  that  they  do  not  guess  its  existence. 
Girls  at  college  often  have  some  family 
anxiety  pressing  upon  them,  of  which  they 
feel  bound  to  say  nothing  to  their  classmates, 
but  they  find  it  no  easy  thing  to  enter  fully 
into  everything  that  is  going  on  here,  when 
their  thoughts  and  hearts  are  frequently 
elsewhere.  All  people  who  fill  public  posi- 
tions, doctors  and  nurses  with  their  patients, 
teachers  with  their  pupils,  ministers  with 
their  people,  friends  with  those  who  look  to 
them  for  inspiration  and  counsel,  know  what 


148  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

it  is  to  put  personal  feelings  out  of  sight, 
and  wear  the  garment  of  their  own  rejoic- 
ing, or  the  sackcloth  of  their  grief,  under- 
neath the  robe  of  office,  while  they  make 
their  rounds  upon  the  wall. 

And  it  is  the  covering  of  the  sackcloth, 
and  the  keeping  it  covered,  that  require  no 
small  heroism.  To  come  away  from  a 
doctor's  office  where  the  sentence  of  death 
has  been  as  good  as  passed,  or  where  one 
has  been  told  that  cherished  plans  must 
be  abandoned  and  a  very  restricted  life 
accepted  with  as  good  grace  as  one  can 
muster,  and  to  go  home  and  readjust  one's 
entire  life  without  bating  a  jot  of  heart  or 
hope,  or  at  all  events  without  allowing  our 
condition  to  cast  a  cloud  over  the  home 
circle ;  to  carry  about  an  inescapable  anxiety 
for  some  loved  one,  for  whose  rectitude  or 
self-control  we  have  good  cause  to  fear,  and 
to  move  among  our  friends,  trying  to  take 
a  normal  part  in  life's  work  and  play;  to  go 
about  life's  business  with  the  heart  wrapped 
in  the  sackcloth  of  shame  for  some  family 
disgrace,  and  disregard  the  occasional  stares 
of  curious  persons  and  the  ill-advised  sym- 
pathy of  the  clumsily  well-intentioned;  to 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         149 

have  doubt  gnawing  one's  cherished  con- 
victions or  a  heart  broken  by  abused  confi- 
dence, or  to  feel  helplessly  lonely  for  the 
sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still,  and  never  allow 
our  private  pain  to  interfere  with  our  public 
obligations;  to  wear  the  rough  sackcloth 
next  our  flesh  and  walk  the  walls  so  that 
men  never  guess  that  we  are  not  swathed  in 
softest  silk — such  is  the  heroism  of  that 
unnamed  king  of  Israel. 

Perhaps  the  woman  who  called  to  him  was 
surprised  that  he  stopped  to  listen  to  her 
story.  After  all,  who  was  she,  desperate  as 
was  her  condition,  that  the  king  should 
notice  her?  She  understood  why  he  was  so 
attentive  when  with  the  rest  she  saw  that 
sackcloth.  We  are  often  astonished  at  the 
sjTnpathy  some  people  give  us.  We  did  not 
know  they  were  so  interested  in  us,  and  we 
did  not  think  that  their  experience  had  given 
them  any  point  of  contact  with  our  condi- 
tion. Many  poor  people,  like  this  woman, 
feel  that  the  well-to-do  move  in  a  totally 
different  world  from  theirs  and  neither  think 
nor  care  what  is  happening  to  them.  And 
unfortunately  a  king  with  sackcloth  next  his 
flesh  is  rare  enough  to  be  noted  even  on  Bible 


150  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

pages.  There  are  enough  people  in  com- 
fortable circumstances,  who  spend  enormous 
sums  on  their  own  pleasure,  or  adornment, 
or  comfort,  or  amusement,  utterly  regard- 
less of  the  squalor  and  misery  within  a  few 
blocks  of  their  luxurious  dwellings,  and  of 
the  appalling  need,  not  for  charity — al- 
though relief  is  still  necessary — ^but  for 
intelligent,  self-sacrificing,  time-consuming 
personal  service  along  a  hundred  lines  of 
social  betterment — there  are  enough  such 
callous  people  to  give  the  poor,  whose  chil- 
dren, if  not  boiled  and  eaten,  are  all  too 
often  needlessly  sacrified  to  preventable  dis- 
ease, or  morally  ruined  by  exposure  to 
accursed  temptations,  cause  to  think  that 
under  the  garments  of  wealth  is  a  heart  of 
stone.  But  there  are  still  these  kingly  souls, 
and  we,  rich  and  poor  alike,  meet  them. 
They  amaze  us  by  the  hearing  they  give  our 
story,  and  sometimes  by  the  insight  with 
which  they  detect  what  we  would  like  to  say 
without  making  us  say  it. 

Later  we  usually  find  out  some  reason  for 
their  sympathy.  Unconsciously  they  draw 
aside  their  garments  sufficiently  to  let  us 
catch  sight  of  sackcloth.    Thackeray  writes. 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         151 

"The  Samaritan  who  rescued  you  most 
likely  has  been  robbed  and  has  bled  in  his 
day,  and  it  is  a  wounded  arm  that  bandages 
yours  when  bleeding."  You  remember  the 
touching  incident  in  the  history  of  our 
English  literature  when  Coleridge,  in  his 
most  necessitous  days,  received  through  a 
publisher  the  offer  of  five  hundred  pounds 
from  another  man  of  letters  much  his  junior, 
DeQuincey;  behind  that  unexpected  gener- 
osity was  the  tragic  fact  that  both  men  were 
bound  together  by  a  similar  adversity — 
both  victims  of  a  drug.  The  heart  that  goes 
out  to  ours  knoweth  its  own  bitterness.  The 
man  who  proves  a  comfort  to  us  has  been 
comforted  in  his  own  aflfliction  with  the 
comfort  which  he  offers.  The  person  who 
is  able  to  put  his  finger  with  infallible 
accuracy  on  all  our  sore  spots,  saying, 
"Thou  ailest,  here  and  here,"  has  had  an 
intimate  acquaintance  of  which  we  were  not 
aware  with  our  malady.  We  can  live  with 
people  a  long  time,  as  these  Samaritans  had 
spent  the  tedious  weeks  and  months  of  that 
awful  siege  with  their  king,  and  not  know 
them.  Life's  business  compels  men  to  wear 
the  conventional  robes  of  place  and  work; 


152  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

it  requires  some  special  happening  to  make 
them  rend  their  garments  and  let  us  see 
what  is  next  their  flesh.  The  first  attention 
they  give  us  may  be  gratifying;  but  how 
close  they  draw  us  to  them  when  we  see  the 
sackcloth! 

Have  you  guessed  already  where  this  line 
of  thought  was  taking  us?  We  men,  with 
our  incurable  religious  instinct,  have  always 
believed  in  a  God  above,  and  in  large 
measure  responsible  for,  His  world.  We 
have  pictured  Him  as  best  we  could  through 
the  highest  words  in  our  human  vocabulary, 
and  found  Him  a  reality  corresponding 
more  or  less  to  our  thought  of  Him.  We 
have  believed  that  He  was  at  least  as  good 
as  ourselves,  and  usually  we  have  insisted 
that  He  was  a  great  deal  better.  If  any 
man  was  thoughtful,  God  was  more  con- 
siderate. If  any  man  was  kind-hearted,  God 
outwent  him.  If  any  man  was  touched  with 
a  feeling  of  his  brothers'  infirmities,  God 
was  more  truly  afflicted  in  all  our  affliction. 
But  it  has  not  been  an  easy  faith  to  hold  in 
famine  times.  When  unspeakable  horrors 
were  taking  place  on  earth,  and  the  heavens 
smiled  serenely ;  when  men  have  been  racked 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         153 

with  pain,  or  tortured  by  cruel  wrong,  or 
broken  with  bitter  sorrow,  and  the  sun  has 
gone  on  shining  upon  the  evil  and  the  good, 
and  silence  has  been  the  only  reply  to  men's 
agonizing  voices,  it  has  seemed  a  mockery 
to  go  on  trusting  that  a  heart  up  yonder 
really  feels  with  us.  It  has  been  most  diffi- 
cult to  "bear  without  resentment  the  divine 
reserve."  And  after  all  the  universe  is  so 
vast,  and  if  there  be  a  God  over  all.  He 
must  be  so  totally  unlike  us,  so  remote  in 
His  infinite  thoughts  and  world-embracing 
plans,  that  it  appears  absurd  to  imagine 
that  He  thinks  of  and  cares  about  what  is 
most  momentous  to  us ;  it  must  be  so  trifling 
to  Him. 

Is  not  God  in  the  height  of  heaven? 
And  behold  the  height  of  the  stars,  how  high  they 
are! 

We  have  all  of  us  shared  the  mood  with 
which  Eliphaz  charges  Job: 

And  thou  sayest.  What  doth  God  know? 

It  is  the  men  in  Job's  circumstances,  in 
the  piteous  circumstances  of  these  women 
in    Samaria,    whose    faith   has   been   most 


154  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

severely  strained.  In  an  awful  period  of 
hunger  in  the  early  days  of  the  colonists 
in  Virginia,  known  afterwards  as  "The 
Starving-Time,"  a  man  walked  up  to  the 
fire  before  his  neighbors  and  flung  his  Bible 
into  the  flames,  declaring  that  it  contained 
nothing  but  lies.  And  you  recall  the  inci- 
dent in  George  Eliot's  novel  where  Janet 
Dempster,  after  a  scene  with  her  drink- 
maddened  husband,  is  pushed  out  of  doors 
and  sits  shivering  on  the  cold  step. 

With  the  door  shut  upon  her  past  life,  and  the 
future  black  and  unshapen  before  her  as  the  night, 
the  scenes  of  her  childhood,  her  youth  and  her  painful 
womanhood,  rushed  back  upon  her  consciousness,  and 
made  one  picture  with  her  present  desolation.  The 
petted  child  taking  her  newest  toy  to  bed  with  her — 
the  young  girl,  proud  in  strength  and  beauty,  dream- 
ing that  life  was  an  easy  thing,  and  that  it  was  pitiful 
weakness  to  be  unhappy — the  bride,  passing  with 
trembling  joy  from  the  outer  court  to  the  inner 
sanctuary  of  woman's  life — ^the  wife,  beginning  her 
initiation  into  sorrow,  wounded,  resenting,  yet  still 
hoping  and  forgiving — ^the  poor  bruised  woman,  seek- 
ing through  weary  years  the  one  refuge  of  despair, 
oblivion: — Janet  seemed  to  herself  all  these  in  the 
same  moment  that  she  was  conscious  of  being  seated 
on  the  cold  stone  under  the  shock  of  a  new  misery. 
Her  mother  had  sometimes  said  that  troubles  were 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         155 

sent  to  make  us  better  and  draw  us  nearer  God. 
What  mockery  that  seemed  to  Janet!  Her  troubles 
had  been  sinking  her  lower  from  year  to  year,  press- 
ing upon  her  like  heavy,  fever-laden  vapors,  and 
perverting  the  very  plenitude  of  her  nature  into  a 
deeper  source  of  disease.  And  if  there  was  any 
Divine  Pity  she  could  not  feel  it;  it  kept  aloof  from 
her,  it  poured  no  balm  into  her  wounds,  it  stretched 
out  no  hand  to  bear  up  her  weak  resolve,  to  fortify 
her  fainting  courage. 

You  recall  the  sequel.  Janet's  wretched- 
ness leads  a  clergyman,  Mr.  Tryan,  to  rend 
his  reserve  and  let  her  know  the  story  of  his 
own  soul's  passage  through  a  similar  land  of 
great  darkness.  And  in  it  you  remember  he 
had  been  found  by  One,  tempted  in  all  points 
like  himself. 

We  may  have  been  f  amihar  with  the  story 
of  Jesus  all  our  days,  but  each  time  we  look 
to  Him,  we  are  amazed  to  find  something  we 
had  not  known  before.  Each  experience 
through  which  we  pass,  each  need  that  drives 
us  to  Him,  proves  a  key  that  opens  up  a  new 
treasure-room  and  admits  us  to  more  of  His 
unsearchable  riches.  There  are  portraits 
which  give  the  impression  that  the  face  is 
turned  straight  towards  you,  and  the  eyes 
follow  you  as  you  move,   from  whatever 


156  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

angle  in  a  room  you  look  at  them.  It  is  so 
with  Jesus  Christ.  From  whatever  point  in 
life's  whole  round  of  occurrences  we  face 
Him,  we  seem  to  be  met  by  eyes  fastened 
directly  on  us  and  with  such  a  look  of 
recognition  as  may  pass  between  friends  who 
have  endured  together  some  strange  and 
secret  experience,  and  are  through  it  enabled 
to  understand  each  other  completely. 

Milton,  in  his  little-read  poem  on  the 
Passion,  describes  Jesus'  death  in  the 
striking  line : 

Then  lies  Him  meekly  down  fast  by  His  brethren's 
side. 

It  seems  to  be  a  true  account  of  what  Christ 
has  done  in  every  situation  in  which  we  find 
ourselves,  as  well  as  in  death.  It  is  not  that 
He  has  been  in  precisely  the  same  circum- 
stances as  ours,  any  more  than  the  king  had 
gone  through  the  identical  starvation  and 
desperate  devising  of  these  two  women ;  but 
His  experiences  seem  always  sufficiently 
close  to  ours  to  give  Him  a  fellow  feeling. 
"Himself  took  our  infirmities  and  bare  our 
diseases."  Origen  records  a  saying  of  His 
unmentioned  in  the  Gospels,  which  sounds 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         157 

genuine:  "For  them  that  were  sick  I  was 
sick."  And  when  from  the  cross  we  hear 
Him  crying,  "Forsaken!"  there  seems  no 
depth  of  doubt  or  wretchedness  which  He 
has  not  sounded.  Nobody  turns  to  Christ 
from  any  experience,  however  extraordi- 
nary, and  feels  that  there  is  no  point  of 
contact  between  himself  and  Him.  There 
is  a  picture  by  Francia  in  the  Louvre  repre- 
senting a  man  bent  in  pain  at  the  foot  of 
the  cross,  but  looking  up  to  this  inscription, 
"Maiora  sustinuit  Ipse."  "Greater  things 
Himself  hath  endured." 

And  every  cross  grows  light  beneath 
The  shadow.  Lord,  of  Thine. 

In  answer  to  each  need  of  ours.  His  gar- 
ments are  rent,  and  behold,  there  is  sack- 
cloth within  upon  His  flesh. 

But  all  this  is  only  saying  that  by  recalling 
a  most  touching  Figure  from  the  past, 
gazing  at  the  loveliest  portrait  in  history, 
we  find  in  the  career  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows 
that  which  makes  Him  kin  to  us,  bone  of 
our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  the  trium- 
phant Sharer  of  our  doubts  and  pains  and 
defeats.    It  is  no  small  thing  to  know  that 


158  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

One  like  us  has  borne  all  and  been  undis- 
mayed; but  what  has  this  Man's  sympathy, 
however  touching,  to  do  with  the  invisible 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth?  Edgar  Tryan 
and  Janet  Dempster  in  George  Eliot's  story 
did  not  stop  with  a  Figure  of  the  past. 
Through  His  heart  they  looked  in  at  the 
divine,  at  the  love  of  God.  The  understand- 
ing of  our  case,  the  feeling  for  our  difficul- 
ties, the  tears  for  our  wretchedness,  which 
we  discover  in  Jesus,  are  not  His  merely; 
for  every  man  who  lets  the  sympathy  of 
Christ  uphold  him,  they  prove  none  other 
than  the  understanding  and  fellow  feeling 
and  pity  of  the  Most  Highest.  In  Jesus 
the  garments  of  this  inscrutable  universe 
have  been  rent  and  we  see  what  is  under- 
neath all — Love.  "I  am  poor  and  needy,  but 
the  Lord  thinketh  upon  me."  "He  counteth 
the  number  of  the  stars;  He  healeth  the 
broken  in  heart  and  bindeth  up  their 
wounds."  It  may  seem  incredible.  One 
can  heap  up  arguments  against  its  proba- 
bility. But  however  it  seem,  countless 
others  have  tried  and  found  that  it  is  true. 
And  when  we  call  to  the  King  of  the 
universe,  who  appears  so  distant  from  our 


UNEXPECTED  SYMPATHY         159 

interests  and  unfamiliar  with  our  circum- 
stances, let  us  go  to  Calvary  where  hangs 
One  like  ourselves  and  look  at  Him  crucified. 
There  comes  to  us  from  Him  a  sympathy 
that  proves  the  strongest  and  wisest  force 
with  which  we  are  anywhere  in  touch,  and 
that  which  is  strongest  and  wisest,  is  for  us 
divinest,  is  God. 

It  is  not  that  God  can  do  everything  He 
would  like  to  for  us.  Even  He  must  some- 
times say,  "Whence  shall  I  help  thee?" 
Neither  out  of  his  threshing-floor  nor  wine- 
press can  He  supply  the  impossible.  He 
can  do  no  more  for  us  than  love  can  do. 
But  love  can  sympathize.  In  Jesus  the  veil 
of  the  temple  is  rent  in  twain  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom,  and  as  we  look,  behold,  there 
is  sackcloth  within  upon  the  heart  of  God. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF 
GOD 

John  14:9,  28.  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father.    The  Father  is  greater  than  I. 

George  Eliot  describes  Adam  Bede  as 
possessing  "that  mental  combination  which 
is  at  once  humble  in  the  region  of  mystery, 
and  keen  in  the  region  of  knowledge,"  and 
she  mentions  in  the  same  breath  the  depth 
of  his  reverence  and  his  hard  common  sense. 
It  is  a  description  of  an  ideally  balanced 
mind  for  religion,  for  it  enables  its  pos- 
sessor to  appreciate  the  two  aspects  of  the 
Christian  thought  of  God — His  certainty 
and  His  mystery.  We  know  what  He  is  in 
Jesus,  so  that  we  trust  and  adore  Him  as 
entirely  Christlike;  and  we  look  off  from 
Jesus  to  God's  vastness  in  which  He  is  more 
than,  but  not  different  from.  Him.  The 
Christian  God  is  like  Jesus  and  greater. 

He  is  like  Jesus.  Think  a  moment  what 
we  mean  by  "God" — ^the  Force  back  of  and 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD     161 

in  the  universe,  the  Mind  that  planned  and 
controls  planets  in  their  courses  and  the 
more  unruly  minds  of  the  millions  of  men, 
the  Beauty  of  whom  the  loveliest  sights  of 
earth  are  but  fragmentary  glimpses.  Then 
think  who  Jesus  was — a  child,  born  to  a 
carpenter  and  his  wife  in  a  stable,  reared 
in  a  small  Galilean  village  and  laboring  at 
His  father's  trade,  appearing  for  a  few 
months  as  an  innovating  religious  teacher 
with  a  handful  of  illiterate  followers, 
arrested  as  a  charlatan  and  revolutionary 
by  the  authorities  in  Church  and  State,  and 
executed  as  a  criminal.  God  is  like  Jesus; 
how  startling  the  statement  is  when  one 
appreciates  its  implications! 

Is  it  true?    Can  it  be  proved? 

As  men  looked  at  the  sea,  it  occurred  to 
one  of  them  that  the  water  could  carry  him, 
and  he  formed  a  mental  image  of  a  boat; 
perhaps  at  the  start  it  was  simply  a  log  to 
which  he  clung.  Another  had  a  better 
image,  and  a  dugout  or  a  raft  was  con- 
structed. A  third  evolved  a  canoe,  and  so 
on  down  to  the  scientifically  calculated  lines 
of  the  last  huge  Atlantic  liner  and  the 
swiftest    modem   yacht.      The   history    of 


162  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

navigation  calls  up  a  strange  medley  of 
images — the  countless  predecessors  and  suc- 
cessors of  Noah's  ark — scows  and  junks, 
triremes  and  galleys,  schooners  and  steam- 
ers, in  which  men  have  trusted  themselves 
on  the  face  of  the  waters.  There  is  a  long 
series  of  experiments  and  a  large  experience 
behind  a  vessel  in  which  you  and  I  embark 
today. 

As  men  looked  off  over  the  infinite  sea  of 
Being,  they  felt  that  there  was  Something 
or  Someone  there  who  could  carry  them; 
and  they  have  formed  mental  images  of  that 
Someone.  The  image  which  Jesus  employed 
when  He  thought  of  God,  and  employed 
so  effectively  that  He  Himself  became  to 
His  followers  the  embodiment  of  the  God 
He  trusted,  and  so  their  Image  of  the 
invisible  Father,  had  behind  it  the  religious 
experiments  of  all  the  race,  and  in  particular 
of  Israel's  patriarchs,  prophets,  psalmists, 
sages,  and  has  since  His  day  been  tested  by 
the  experience  of  many  thousand  Christians. 
He  improved  on  all  His  predecessors, 
exactly  as  a  designer  of  ships  avails  himself 
of  the  knowledge  of  all  who  have  tried  his 
task  before  him  and  attempts  to  advance 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD    163 

on  them.  Since  Jesus'  day  Christians  have 
not  been  able  to  improve  on  Him,  simply 
because  they  have  found  no  deficiencies  in 
His  image  of  God.  When  we  say  that  God 
is  Jesus-like,  we  leave  nothing  to  be  desired. 

Men's  images  of  boats  have  been  success- 
ful; they  have  sailed  the  seas.  The  image 
that  best  conforms  to  the  necessities  of  winds 
and  waves,  that  enables  them  most  skilfully 
to  steer  into  the  winding  channel  of  the 
harbor,  and  to  outride  most  safely  the 
storm,  has  displaced  the  less  satisfactory. 
Its  workableness  has  been  the  proof  of  its 
correspondence  to  the  eternal  facts  of  the 
universe  in  the  mighty  deep. 

Men's  images  of  God,  from  the  crudest 
fetish  to  the  figure  of  the  Son  of  man,  have 
worked.  Through  them  men  have  drawn 
from  the  Unseen  inestimable  inspiration, 
wisdom,  comfort,  strength,  love.  The  image 
through  which  they  have  received  most  has 
naturally  supplanted  less  effective  concep- 
tions. The  image  that  best  conforms  to  the 
facts  of  the  Invisible,  that  most  exactly  cor- 
responds to  the  character  of  God,  demon- 
strates its  truth  by  its  workableness,  its 
results.     If  by  adoring,  trusting,  obeying 


164  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

God  in  Jesus  we  find  ourselves  most  enrich- 
ingly  related  to  the  Unseen,  is  not  the  Jesus- 
likeness  of  God  proven,  as  far  as  proof  can 
go?  If  any  man  replies,  "I  simply  cannot 
believe  it ;  the  God  of  all  cannot  be  pictured 
in  a  Man,"  we  can  only  ask  him  to  try  and 
see.  The  effectiveness  of  designs  for  vessels 
cannot  be  tested  by  sitting  about  a  table  and 
discussing  drawings  on  paper;  the  conclu- 
sive demonstration  is  a  trial  trip  in  all  sorts 
of  weather.  The  Christlikeness  of  God 
cannot  be  argued;  its  conclusive  evidence 
awaits  those  who  venture  out  on  life's  enter- 
prise confiding  in  and  devoted  to  God  in 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 

^Vhen  we  assert,  as  we  do  at  this  Christ- 
mas season,  that  whoever  sees  Jesus,  sees 
the  Father,  we  mean  the  Man  Christ  Jesus, 
not  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem.  This  Baby, 
however  infinite  His  promise,  cannot  reveal 
God  fully.  Had  Herod  succeeded  in 
murdering  the  Child  of  Mary,  or  had  the 
Boy  died  at  twelve,  or  had  Jesus  been  taken 
from  us  any  time  short  of  Calvary,  we 
should  not  have  had  the  final  disclosure  of 
God  in  a  human  life.  The  incarnation  is  not 
complete    in    the    manger-cradle.      Jesus* 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD     165 

embodiment  of  God  was  an  achievement  at 
which  both  He  and  His  Father  wrought 
together  for  the  three  and  thirty  stainless 
years  of  His  earthly  life.  Clement  of 
Alexandria  says,  "With  the  most  perfect 
ease  He  made  God  shine  on  us";  we  may 
not  be  conscious  of  the  effort  but  there  is  a 
completely  engrossing  effort  both  on  Jesus' 
and  on  His  Father's  part  in  His  revealing 
God  to  us  and  in  God's  reveahng  Himself 
to  us  through  Him. 

It  cost  Jesus  constant  effort.  We  do  the 
Son  of  God  a  gross  injustice  if  we  think  He 
simply  had  to  let  Himself  be  sent  to  earth, 
and  be  here  what  He  could  not  but  be. 
There  was  certainly  something  unique  about 
Him  to  begin  with.  There  is  an  undeniable 
truth  in  the  stories  of  His  coming  down  from 
heaven  or  of  His  miraculous  birth,  however 
you  may  put  into  prose  sentences  the 
religious  poetry  of  the  Gospels.  He  was 
unique  to  start  with ;  but  we  must  be  careful 
in  allowing  for  this  singularity  not  to  repre- 
sent Him  as  without  our  handicaps  and  so 
attaining  goodness  with  an  ease  impossible 
to  us.  That  is  to  rob  ourselves  of  One  made 
and  tempted  in  all  points  like  unto  His 


166  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

brethren.  Jesus  with  the  inevitable  hmita- 
tions  of  all  human  beings,  limitations  of 
ignorance  and  of  weakness,  fought  for 
Himself  and  for  us  the  good  fight  of  faith, 
wrought  in  patience  and  self-control  and 
consecration  at  His  Father's  business,  and 
was  "made  perfect"  (to  use  the  pregnant 
New  Testament  phrase),  became  the  Image 
of  the  Most  High,  the  fullness  of  the 
Godhead  bodily. 

And  it  cost  the  Father  an  effort.  The 
conventional  representation  of  the  disclosure 
of  God  in  Jesus  does  the  Father  a  gross 
injustice.  His  love  is  supposed  to  be  shown 
in  letting  His  Son  leave  Him  for  a  few  years 
and  become  a  poor  human  being  in  the  earth. 
But  Jesus  would  have  stoutly  refused  assent 
to  the  statement  that  He  had  left  the  Father. 
He  was  no  prodigal  here,  nor  in  a  far 
country.  Everything  about  Him  in  our 
world — sun  and  rain,  grass  of  the  field  and 
birds  of  the  air — ^was  God's;  people  were 
children  of  the  Most  High.  And  as  for  His 
abiding  contact  with  the  Father,  how  could 
it  be  more  strongly  put  than:  "I  am  not 
alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  Me" ;  "The 
Father  abiding  in  Me"?    The  Father's  part 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD    167 

in  the  incarnation  was  not  in  allowing  His 
Son  to  leave  Him,  but  rather  in  constantly 
accompanying  Him,  in  going  in  Him.  We 
speak  of  an  author's  writing  himself  into  his 
book,  of  a  leader's  throwing  his  life  into  a 
movement,  of  a  workman's  putting  his  heart 
into  his  work.  Paul  said  of  the  rimaway 
slave,  Onesimus,  on  whom  he  had  lavished 
his  thought  and  pains,  when  he  sent  him 
back  to  his  master,  Philemon,  "Whom  I 
have  sent  back  to  thee  in  his  own  person, 
that  is  my  very  heart."  God  through  all  the 
years  of  the  growth  and  the  work  of  the  Son 
of  Mary  put  Himself  into  Him.  Answer- 
ing the  continuous  trust  of  the  Son  of  man 
was  the  constant  self -giving  of  the  Father 
to  Him.  There  was  an  Advent  of  the 
Father  at  Christmas,  as  truly  as  an  Advent 
of  the  Son. 

The  result  of  Jesus'  trustful  obedience 
and  the  Father's  self-impartation  was  the 
disclosure  of  God  in  a  human  life,  God  in 
Christ.  "He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father." 

It  has  been  one  of  the  tragedies  of  history, 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  tragedies,  that 
Christians  have  loudly  proclaimed  the  deity 


168  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

of  Jesus,  and  kept  on  picturing  God  as  in 
many  respects  unlike  Him.  But  it  has 
always  been  and  is  orthodox  Christianity  to 
insist  that  deity  in  the  Father  and  in  the 
Son  is  the  same  deity;  Jesus  is  like  the 
Father  and  the  Father  is  like  Jesus.  No 
statement  about  God  that  represents  Him 
as  thinking  or  feeling  or  doing  anything  in 
the  least  out  of  harmony  with  the  thought 
and  heart  and  purpose  of  Jesus  can  be 
accepted  for  one  moment  by  Christians  as 
true.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the 
statement  be  made  by  a  Bible  writer,  or 
whether  it  has  been  accepted  by  the  entire 
Christian  Church  for  centuries.  Anything 
attributed  to  God  in  past,  present  or  future, 
which  a  Christian  is  convinced  is  unlike 
Jesus,  he  must  refuse  to  believe,  or  he  ceases 
to  be  a  Christian.    We  must 

Correct  the  portrait  by  the  living  Face, 
Man's  God  by  God's  God  in  the  mind  of  man. 

This  is  the  Christian  Gospel,  the  good 
news  of  God.  We  look  at  the  Life  which 
appeared  in  Bethlehem  and  reached  its 
climax  on  Calvary.  He  is  the  Best  we  can 
imagine,  the  Loveliest  we  can  conceive.    He 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD     169 

is  everything  we  want  of  goodness,  and 
patience,  and  forgiveness,  and  courage. 
"He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the 
Father.  My  God  and  your  God  is  all  that 
I  am;  My  Father  and  your  Father  is  trying 
to  give  Himself  to  you,  as  He  gave  Himself 
to  Me.  Will  you  follow  Me,  and  let  Him 
put  Himself  in  His  Spirit  more  and  more 
into  you,  as  I  received  Him  in  His  fullness 
bodily?" 

God  is  like  Jesus  and  more,  "The  Father 
is  greater  than  I."  This  is  a  saying  that  we 
seldom  speak  of,  largely  because  it  is  difficult 
for  us  to  make  anything  out  of  it.  Jesus 
means  so  infinitely  much  to  us  that  we  feel 
no  need  of  and  cannot  conceive  a  greater 
than  He.  And  it  is  puzzling  to  think  out 
in  what  this  superior  greatness  consists.  Is 
it  power?  Can  we  fancy  a  force  greater 
than  the  love  drawing  us  from  the  cross? 
If  there  be  such  a  force,  why  did  not  God 
use  it,  instead  of  employing  something 
inferior  to  save  the  world?  Is  it  wisdom? 
Could  anything  be  wiser  than  this  same  dis- 
closure of  love  at  Calvary?  Is  it  goodness? 
Can  God  be  better  than  the  Crucified?  But 
we  must  not  forget  that  above  even  the 


170  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Crucified  was  One  before  whom  He  bowed 
and  to  whom  He  looked  up  with  boundless 
reverence.  We  look  up  with  Him,  and  we 
feel  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  mystery 
which  renders  our  words  futile.  This 
"greaterness"  of  the  Father,  which  we 
cannot  precisely  phrase,  emphasizes  that 
illimitableness  of  God  which  we  need  to 
keep  in  mind  whenever  we  think  of  Him. 
A  French  mystic  has  said  that  to  define  God 
is  to  end  Him — "Le  Dieu  defini  est  le  Dieu 
fini."  When  we  have  said  everjiihing  we 
can  about  the  Most  High,  we  have  to  lower 
our  heads  and  add,  "He  is  all  this  and  much 
more."  This  is  Jesus'  invariable  attitude. 
The  young  ruler  addressed  Him  as  Good 
Master.  "Why  callest  thou  Me  good?  none 
is  good  save  One,  even  God."  "Away  from 
all  that  you  see  to  admire  and  revere  in  Me 
to  Him  who  is  the  same  but  greater." 

The  ocean  sends  up  a  bay  into  our  coast. 
We  use  it  as  a  harbor;  we  moor  our  boats 
in  it ;  we  sail  around  it  again  and  again,  until 
we  are  familiar  with  its  shore  line ;  we  build 
a  house  beside  it,  and  grow  accustomed  to 
looking  it  over  a  dozen  times  a  day.  The 
water  in  the  bay  is  one  with  the  water  in 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD     171 

the  ocean;  it  rises  and  falls  with  the  tides 
of  the  great  sea.  The  ocean  is  in  the  bay, 
so  far  as  the  ocean  can  be  contracted  within 
such  dimensions.  We  bathe  in  it  without 
fear,  and  sail  on  it  with  safety;  and  after 
we  have  lived  beside  it  for  years  feel  that 
we  understand  it ;  it  is  our  own  familiar  bay. 

That  is  a  picture  of  God  in  Jesus.  He 
holds  as  much  of  God  as  a  limited  human 
life  can  contain.  The  life,  the  heart,  the 
mind,  the  will  of  God  in  Him  are  identical 
with  the  life,  the  heart,  the  mind,  the  will 
of  the  infinite  and  eternal  Father,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth.  We  can  come  close  to 
Him  as  our  Brother;  we  can  enter  into  His 
faith.  His  hope.  His  purpose,  His  sacrifice, 
and  become  His  friends.  After  years  of 
obedient  and  trusting  companionship,  we 
say,  "I  understand  and  know  Jesus  Christ." 
That  means,  "I  understand  and  know  God," 
for  he  that  hath  seen  Him  hath  seen  the 
Father. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  we  never  get  to 
know  a  bay.  Every  time  we  sail  over  its 
expanse  we  catch  some  new  glimpse  of 
beauty  we  had  not  noticed  before,  some 
effect  of  sunlight  or  of  cloud  or  of  wind- 


172  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

tossed  wave  or  of  moon-silvered  water. 
There  are  wonders  of  life  within  its  limited 
area  that  would  keep  us  exploring  and 
studying  them  all  our  days  to  classify  them 
and  understand  them  scientifically,  and 
marvels  in  shell  and  fish  and  plant  to  afford 
us  some  new  interest  seemingly  endless. 

It  is  so  with  the  exhaustless  beauty  and 
unsearchable  riches  of  Jesus.  One  can 
scarcely  read  an  incident  in  the  Gospels 
without  finding  something  he  had  not 
noticed  before.  Paul,  who  understood 
Jesus  as  well  and  better  than  any  follower 
Christ  has  ever  had,  constantly  feels  his 
vocabulary  beggared  in  trying  to  describe 
Him,  and  is  reduced  to  such  expressions  as, 
"The  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowl- 
edge," "the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ," 
"God's  unspeakable  gift." 

But  the  bay  is  not  the  ocean.  That  is  all 
that  the  bay  is  and  more.  We  look  out 
across  the  bay  to  the  bar  at  its  mouth,  and 
let  our  imagination  sail  away  over  the  limit- 
less stretch  of  waters  beyond,  fancy  the 
many  diverse  lands  which  the  sea  touches, 
picture  the  commerce  of  the  world  crossing 
its  markless  paths,  puzzle  our  minds  with 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD    173 

the  strange  and  marvellous  contents  of  its 
vast  recesses,  hear  at  times  the  roar  of  its 
surf  as  its  waves  come  pounding  in  at  the 
harbor's  mouth,  and  let  its  incalculable 
vastness  awe  us. 

"My  Father  is  greater  than  I."  There  is 
a  boundlessness  to  our  thought  of  God,  of 
whom  and  through  whom  and  unto  whom 
are  all  things,  the  Life  and  Lord  of  this 
and  all  worlds.  We  fancy  His  personal 
fellowship  not  with  a  few  hundred  people, 
but  with  every  life  that  has  ever  lived,  each 
born  in  His  thought,  watched  and  led  by  His 
love,  accompanied  in  the  darkest  experience 
of  sorrow  and  the  lowest  hell  of  sin — God, 
the  great  uniting  sea  with  His  contact  for 
ever  and  ever  and  ever  with  every  soul.  We 
picture  the  commerce  of  all  minds  and  hearts 
passing  through  Him,  the  thoughts  of  all 
men  known  to  Him,  the  loves  of  all  men  felt 
by  Him.  We  puzzle  our  minds  with  the 
inestimable  treasures  in  His  deep  places — 
His  patience,  which  has  borne  the  ignorance, 
the  folly,  the  obstinacy,  of  all  His  children 
through  all  their  generations ;  His  resource- 
fulness, which  has  never  been  defeated  by 
man's   thwarting   His   designs;   His   love, 


174  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

which  in  every  age  has  suffered  with  and  for 
every  child  of  His  to  redeem  him,  even  as 
Jesus  suffered  once  on  Calvary.  At  times 
we  hear  a  voice,  like  the  voice  of  many 
waters,  the  voice  of  the  greatness,  the 
majesty,  the  holiness  of  our  God.  "He  that 
hath  seen  Me,  hath  seen  the  Father;  the 
Father  is  greater  than  I." 

Religion  means  little  to  many  of  us  simply 
because  our  idea  of  God  is  neither  interest- 
ing nor  attractive.  The  Christian  thought 
of  God  convinces  the  mind  and  constrains 
the  heart.  Think  of  Jesus — ^the  Babe,  the 
Boy,  the  Man,  the  Teacher,  the  Friend,  the 
Saviour,  the  Warrior  with  evil,  the  Sufferer, 
the  Lord  of  life.  Unto  us  this  Child  is  born, 
unto  us  this  Son  is  given.  And  all  that  He 
was,  our  Father  has  always  been  and  is  and 
always  will  be.  We  get  the  Father  in  the 
Son.  We  have  the  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ.  But  even  this  is  not  all.  Up  and 
away  from  the  unspeakable  Gift  we  look  to 
an  even  wealthier  Giver.  We  can  let  our 
thought  stretch  itself  and  come  to  no  end, 
our  love  fly  out  and  find  no  resting  place. 
"There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy  like  the 


CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  GOD    175 

wideness  of  the  sea."  The  water  of  the  sea 
is  never  different  from  the  water  of  life  in 
the  bay,  but  oh,  the  infiniteness  of  its  reaches, 
its  immeasurable  expanse!  We  are  lost  in 
wonder,  love  and  praise. 

And  this  God,  like  Jesus  and  greater,  is 
our  God  forever  and  ever ;  the  God  in  whom 
we  trust,  for  whom  we  sacrifice,  with  whom 
we  toil  and  whom  we  seek  to  embody  in  a 
whole  world's  life,  so  that  He  is  all  in  all. 


XI 

FAITH  AND  GROWING 
KNOWLEDGE 

Genesis  32 :  26.  And  He  said,  Let  Me  go,  for  the 
day  breaketh. 

Psalm  139:  18.  When  I  awake,  I  am  still  with 
Thee. 

The  presence  of  God  and  clear  daylight 
seemed  incompatible  to  the  Patriarch  Jacob. 
While  the  blackness  of  night  wrapped  him 
in  its  mysteries  God  was  vividly  near, 
wrestKng  with  him,  laming  him,  within  his 
grasp  as  he  clung  to  Him  desperately;  but 
as  the  morning  broke  the  divine  Visitant 
appeared  to  be  trying  to  get  away.  When 
the  sun  dispelled  the  shadows  and  exposed 
the  familiar  sights  of  earth,  he  expected  to 
find  nothing  underneath  his  arms  and  to  see 
empty  space,  where  in  the  darkness  he  had 
felt  the  moving,  breathing,  struggling 
Combatant.  The  first  streaks  of  dawn 
brought  the  voice,  "Let  Me  go,  for  the  day 
breaketh." 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  177 

This  feeling  that  light  banishes  God,  that 
to  see  clearly  is  to  lose  sight  of  Him,  often 
recurs  in  the  experience  of  religious  people. 

In  the  world  of  startling  surprises  into 
which  a  child  is  born,  he  finds  little  difficulty 
in  imagining  the  unseen  beings  of  whom  he 
is  told,  and  living  in  their  actual  society. 
The  Santa  Claus,  to  whom  he  posts  a 
Christmas  letter  in  the  chimney,  is  so  real 
that  he  can  readily  be  induced  to  think  that 
the  wind  he  hears  blowing  over  the  chimney- 
top  is  the  swift  passing  of  an  airy  postman 
carrying  the  mail  to  the  kindly  patron  of 
good  children.  The  invisible  God,  to  whom 
he  addresses  his  nightly  "Now  I  lay  me 
down  to  sleep"  and  says,  "Our  Father, 
which  art  in  heaven,"  is  as  sensibly  at  hand. 
The  pictures  children  form  of  God  vary 
with  what  they  are  taught  and  the  impres- 
sions they  receive,  but  the  sense  of  His 
actuality  they  themselves  supply.  Mrs. 
Browning's  lines,  in  which  she  describes  a 
child's  thought  of  God,  put  this  graphically : 

They  say  that  God  lives  very  high ; 

But  if  you  look  above  the  pines 
You  cannot  see  our  God:  and  why? 


178  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

And  if  you  dig  down  in  the  mines 

You  never  see  Him  in  the  gold; 
Though  from  Him  all  that  glory  shines. 

God  is  so  good,  He  wears  a  fold 

Of  heaven  and  earth  across  His  face — 
Like  secrets  kept,  for  love,  untold. 

But  still  I  feel  that  His  embrace 

Slides  down  by  thrills,  through  all  things  made^ 
Through  sight  and  sound  of  every  place: 

As  if  my  tender  mother  laid 

On  my  shut  lips  her  kisses'  pressure, 

Half-waking  me  at  night,  and  said 

"  Who    kissed    you    through    the    dark,    dear 
guesser  ?" 

But  it  was  through  the  dark  and  when  the 
child  was  but  half  awake  that  the  kiss  was 
felt.  As  he  goes  to  school  and  gets  expla- 
nations for  things  that  were  mysterious  to 
him  before,  God  inevitably  becomes  less 
present.  If  he  has  fancied  a  divine  Hand 
setting  the  moon  and  stars  in  the  evening 
sky,  just  as  the  lamplighter  turns  on  the 
street  lights,  God's  share  in  the  beauty  of 
night  disappears  when  he  confronts  a  globe 
and  is  shown  how  the  earth  revolves  about 
the  sun,  and  the  stars  become  visible  simply 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  179 

because  of  the  absence  of  sunlight.  If  he 
has  pictured  the  rain  falling  from  opened 
windows  in  the  heavens,  after  the  manner  of 
the  early  Bible  stories,  God's  part  in  the 
tumbling  drops  is  taken  away  when  he  learns 
of  the  sun's  evaporation  of  water  and  the 
formation  of  clouds.  The  more  he  learns, 
the  more  everything  seems  to  him  to  go  on 
without  God's  having  anything  to  do  with 
it.  Mystery  gave  him  a  region  in  which  he 
could  easily  imagine  God  as  active ;  but  light 
is  breaking  on  all  these  shadowy  spots,  and 
he  does  not  see  God  in  them  any  longer. 
The  world  he  is  studying  grows  more  fasci- 
nating; the  things  he  sees  and  does  absorb 
his  interest  and  attention,  and  he  ceases  to 
let  his  imagination  play  as  he  used  to;  the 
unseen  is  forgotten.  The  Great  Companion, 
who  once  was  as  real  to  him  as  the  people 
in  his  own  home,  seems  to  be  leaving  him, 
saying,  "Let  Me  go,  for  the  day  breaketh." 
He  thinks  that,  when  he  knows  as  much  as 
his  elders,  he  will  find  himself  in  a  godless 
world.  He  may  be  steadily  improving  in 
character,  overcoming  and  outgrowing  child- 
ish weaknesses  and  faults;  but  the  chances 
are  that  the  growing  boy  or  girl  will  pray 


180  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

less,  care  less  for  the  Bible  and  its  stories, 
think  less  of  God,  than  the  child.  The 
world  is  more  interesting,  and  life  is  far 
fuller  and  richer;  but  he  has  lost  an  inde- 
finable somewhat  that  gave  childhood  a 
mysterious  delight. 

There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove  and  stream, 
The  earth  and  every  common  sight. 

To  me  did  seem 
Apparelled  in  celestial  light. 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream. 
It  is  not  now  as  it  hath  been  of  yore : — 
Turn  wheresoe'er  I  may, 
By  night  or  day, 
The  things  which  I  have  seen  I  now  can  see  no 
more. 

And  if  this  is  true  when  the  dawn  steals 
on  us,  it  is  truer  still  when  the  long  shadows 
of  early  day  retreat  before  the  glare  of  mid- 
morning.  Many  a  schoolboy,  who  at  fifteen 
has  made  a  compact  with  a  divine  Friend 
and  lived  with  a  keen  sense  of  loyalty  to 
Him,  even  if  his  fancy  no  longer  pictured 
Him  with  the  vividness  of  childhood,  finds 
himself  at  college  with  a  world- view  in  which 
such  a  personal  relation  with  the  Unseen 
appears  impossible.     He  has  become  more 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  181 

knowing,  more  clever,  more  critical.  A 
brilliant,  hard  light  shines  on  everything. 
Even  the  shadows  seem  no  longer  obscure 
to  him.  The  subtle  beauty  of  the  universe 
with  its  suggestion  of  the  divine  has  faded 
out,  and  life's  physical  and  human  facts  and 
problems  stare  him  in  the  face.  He  has 
been  taught  to  think — to  think  rigorously, 
coolly,  steadily,  and  the  first  application 
of  such  searching  thought  to  religious  con- 
victions usually  dissolves  them  altogether. 
The  daybreak  of  manhood's  knowledge  has 
banished  God. 

And  now  a  flower  is  just  a  flower: 

Man,  bird,  beast  are  but  beast,  bird,  man — 

Simply  themselves,  uncinct  by  dower 
Of  dyes  which,  when  life's  day  began. 
Round  each  in  glory  ran. 

Nor  is  it  alone  in  transitional  stages  in 
our  growth  that  God  disappears  with  the 
coming  of  light.  It  often  occurs  when  we 
let  light  in  on  our  own  religious  experiences. 
Men  are  interested  today  in  studying  the 
human  soul  in  its  relations  to  God.  Prayer, 
conversion,  revivals,  all  the  movements  of 
our  spirits  towards  the  divine,  are  explored 


182  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

and  charted.  This  searchlight  of  investiga- 
tion has  often  the  effect  of  obhterating  God 
from  the  very  transaction  in  which  we  were 
most  aware  of  Him.  Sudden  transforma- 
tions of  character  are,  perhaps,  the  most 
starthng  and  convincing  of  the  manifesta- 
tions of  divine  power.  A  careless  and 
indifferent  boy  becomes  within  a  month 
devout  and  devoted.  We  are  amazed  at  the 
rapidity  of  his  development  and  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  alteration.  A  man  who 
yesterday  was  a  brutish  sot  is  overnight 
turned  into  a  self-controlled,  sensitive, 
responsible  husband,  father,  citizen.  We 
feel  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  superhuman 
force,  and  are  awed.  "The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound 
thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh, 
nor  whither  it  goeth;  so  is  every  one  that 
is  born  of  the  Spirit."  But  men  have  not 
been  content  to  allow  the  wind  to  remain 
an  inscrutable  secret;  they  have  studied  the 
atmospheric  changes  which  affect  air  cur- 
rents, and  can  tell  us  with  reasonable 
accuracy  whence  a  breeze  has  come  and 
whither  it  goes.  Men  have  probed  into  the 
wonders  of  a  change  of  heart;  they  have 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  183 

collected  statistics  and  compiled  charts 
showing  that  it  was  natural  to  expect  a 
growing  boy  to  undergo  a  transformation 
in  his  soul,  when  body  and  mind  were  pass- 
ing through  equally  striking  changes.  They 
analyze  the  process  which  takes  place  in  a 
redeemed  drunkard's  brain  and  relate  it  to 
other,  somewhat  similar,  mental  changes 
which  remake  lives.  And  this  exploration 
of  the  subtle  occurrences  in  a  soul  frequently 
has  the  result  of  robbing  the  experiences  of 
their  divineness.  God,  who  was  so  keenly 
felt  when  the  experience  was  shrouded  in 
obscurity,  seems  to  have  vanished,  when  we 
examine  it  in  broad  day. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  light  of  investigation 
which  tends  to  do  away  with  God;  the  calm 
light  of  reflection  has  a  similar  effect.  That 
is,  perhaps,  the  explanation  of  Jacob's  expe- 
rience in  our  text.  When  night  settled  on 
him  at  the  Jabbok,  and  he  was  wondering 
whether  his  wily  scheme  to  pacify  his  less 
astute  brother  would  succeed,  his  conscience 
suddenly  gripped  him.  His  sin  had  found 
him  out.  In  angry  Esau  coming  to  meet 
him  with  his  band  of  warriors,  his  own 
trickery  was  returning  to  plague  him.    The 


184  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

divine  Wrestler  asked  insistently,  "What  is 
thy  name?"  compelling  the  helpless  man  to 
look  at  himself,  judge  himself,  condemn 
himself.  In  his  shame  and  fear,  bewildered 
and  confused  by  the  troubling  and  accusing 
thoughts  that  rushed  upon  him,  he  was 
vividly  aware  of  God.  It  is  He  who 
opposes  him,  struggles  with  him,  lames  him. 
But  such  an  emotional  strain  cannot  be 
indefinitely  prolonged:  and  with  the  dawn 
the  sight  of  hills  and  plain  and  stream 
steadied  him:  his  thoughts  became  quieter: 
and  as  he  reflected  on  his  experience,  lo, 
God,  a  few  moments  before  so  insistently 
present,  appeared  to  be  going.  Have  we 
not  been  in  sufficiently  similar  circumstances 
to  appreciate  the  inescapable  pressure  of 
God  through  conscience,  and  then,  as  our 
mind  grew  calmer  and  we  began  to  reflect, 
have  we  not  been  surprised  at  the  cool 
fashion  with  which  we  almost  smiled  at  our- 
selves for  having  been  so  wrought  up  over 
our  iniquities,  and  finally  were  we  not 
impressed  with  the  utter  remoteness  of  God, 
a  while  before  so  sensibly  in  contact  with  us? 
Or  the  darkness  in  which  men  are  aware 
of  God's  touch  upon  them  may  be  the  valley 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  185 

of  the  shadow  of  a  great  sorrow.  People 
often  surprise  us  by  their  cahnness  under 
the  first  shock  of  grief.  It  may  be  that  they 
scarcely  realize  their  loss.  Time  brings  lone- 
liness home.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
excitement  of  sorrow  renders  the  soul 
acutely  sensitive,  and  God  is  felt  with  an 
unusual  intensity.  "Yea,  though  I  walk 
through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
I  will  fear  no  evil;  for  Thou  art  with  me/' 
When  the  life  has  readjusted  itself  after  the 
blow,  when  it  is  emerging  from  the  shadowed 
ravine  on  to  the  plain  of  convention  and 
routine  and  normal  living,  there  is  often  a 
sense  of  God's  disappearance.  Arnold's 
Stagirius  prays: 

When  the  soul,  growing  clearer. 

Sees  God  no  nearer ; 
When  the  soul,  mounting  higher. 

To  God  comes  no  nigher; 
Save,  Oh  save! 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  devout  people, 
to  whom  the  sense  of  God's  nearness  means 
everything,  are  eager  to  avoid  the  daybreak 
of  searching  knowledge  or  the  light  of  steady 
and  penetrating  thought.      "What  has  the 


186  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Church  to  do  with  the  Academy?"  has  been 
a  cry  raised  from  TertuUian's  day  to  our 
own.  John  Henry  Newman  complains  of 
"the  all  corroding,  all  dissolving  skepticism 
of  the  intellect  in  religious  inquiries."  It  has 
only  been  a  vigorous  faith,  like  Paul's  or 
John's,  which  willingly  proves  all  things, 
assured  that  "God  is  light,  and  in  Him  is 
no  darkness  at  all."  Eyes  have  to  grow 
accustomed  to  bright  sunshine  as  truly  as  to 
darkness  before  they  can  see,  and  the  process 
is  much  more  painful.  It  requires  courage 
and  strength  of  will  to  open  them,  and  keep 
them  open,  despite  the  tears  that  form. 
Such  resolute  looking  is  not  disappointed. 
The  seeming  fading  out  of  God  from  the 
scene  will  prove  to  be  but  bhndness  due  to 
excess  of  bright.  He  covers  Himself  with 
light  as  with  a  garment  and  the  dazzling 
robe  often  conceals  Him.  It  is  only  after 
we  have  familiarized  ourselves  with  the  day- 
light that  we  make  the  discovery,  "When  I 
awake,  I  am  still  with  Thee." 

The  boy  passing  out  of  childhood  is  quit- 
ting the  world  of  fancy  for  the  world  of  fact. 
He  has  lost  the  Deity  of  his  early  imagina- 
tion and  must  gaze  at  the  God  of  things 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  187 

as  they  are.  He  disturbs  parents  and 
teachers  by  questioning  the  Bible  stories, 
the  prayers,  the  simple  religious  ideas,  which 
once  delighted  him.  Well  for  him,  if  their 
faith  is  robust  enough  to  enable  them  to  be 
frank!  The  reaction  from  the  romance  of 
childhood  reduces  him  to  a  bald  literalist, 
but  he  must  look  steadily  at  facts  until  they 
of  themselves  awaken  his  wonder  and  awe. 
Through  Jesus,  no  longer  a  fairylike  Being 
but  a  Man,  facing  problems  and  difficulties 
like  our  own,  and  with  a  faith  we  can  share, 
he  must  become  aware  of  the  God  and 
Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  feel  Him  as  real 
a  force  as  the  most  indubitable  actualities 
of  hf  e. 

The  college  student  with  his  new  world- 
view,  with  his  sense  of  all-pervasive  law, 
with  his  necessarily  critical  attitude  towards 
all  things,  has  a  further  struggle  for  faith. 
He  must  keep  his  eyes  open  on  his  world- 
view  until  they  see  the  fact  of  religion  as 
clearly  as  other  facts.  He  must  look  at  laws 
long  enough  to  see  that  they  are  not  opaque 
barriers,  but  can  be  looked  through  to 
a  Personality  behind  them.  Testing  all 
things,  he  must  honestly  test  Jesus  Christ, 


188  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

using  Him  as  the  Image  of  the  invisible 
Most  High,  until  he  knows  whether  that 
image  be  valid  or  not,  whether  through 
Christ  he  finds  fellowship  with  a  God  whose 
reality  is  certified  to  him  by  the  guidance, 
the  power,  the  inspiration,  the  companion- 
ship he  derives  from  Him.  If  he  loses  some 
of  his  childhood's  religion  it  is  lost  "in  no 
other  way  than  light  is  lost  in  light." 
Awake  to  all  the  knowledge  the  world  can 
offer,  he  is  still  with  God. 

The  man  who  examines  religious  expe- 
rience in  prayer,  conversion  and  the  like,  and 
finds  investigation  dulling  faith,  because  he 
discovers  laws  where  before  was  nothing  but 
mystery,  is  not  yet  really  awake.  He  must 
rub  his  eyes  and  look  again  until  the  marvels 
of  the  result  wrought  through  processes 
which  seem  ordinary  enough,  impress  him. 
The  clicking  of  a  telegraph  receiver  sounds 
to  an  uninitiated  listener  the  same  when  it 
is  recording  some  commonplace  or  some 
message  of  momentous  import.  It  is  only 
by  watching  what  happens  when  the  news 
is  received  that  he  finds  out  the  significance 
of  the  sounds  which  seemed  so  usual.  All 
the  occurrences  in  the  mind  of  a  man  under 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  189 

religious  influences  may  seem  very  like 
occurrences  under  much  less  exalted  stimuli. 
What  do  these  occurrences  make  out  of 
him?  what  does  prayer  accomplish  in  him? 
what  is  he  converted  to? — ^these  are  the  tests 
which  set  us  in  the  way  of  seeing  results 
sufficiently  godlike  to  attest  the  work  of 
God.  With  our  knowledge  of  the  processes 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  increase  and  intensify 
the  results,  to  cooperate  intelligently  with 
God,  and  in  the  broad  day  of  knowledge  find 
ourselves  in  closer  harmony  with  Him. 

The  Jacob  who  leaves  the  Jabbok  is  less 
aware  of  God's  presence  than  the  struggler 
who  feels  himself  at  Peniel  face  to  face  with 
God.  But  his  subsequent  history  shows  no 
more  trickery;  and  is  the  God  who  steadily 
and  quietly  speaks  through  a  regularly 
functioning  conscience  any  less  actual  than 
the  God  who  wrestled  with  him  in  his  night 
of  self-accusation  and  fear?  Ought  he  not 
to  say  after  every  step  he  has  been  enabled 
to  take  in  frankness  and  sincerity,  "I  have 
seen  God  face  to  face  and  my  life  is  pre- 
served"? Not  less  but  more  reflection  will 
make  us  feel  that  the  conscience,  which  daily 
keeps    us    from   moral    destruction,    is    as 


190  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

marvellous  a  disclosure  of  the  sublimest 
Force  in  the  universe — of  God — as  the 
occasional  bewildering  struggle  when  an 
outraged  conscience  assails  us  with  divine 
compunctions. 

The  man  resuming  life's  routine  after 
some  great  experience  may  feel  God  slip- 
ping from  him.  The  garish  light  of  common 
day  discloses  nothing  but  common  things 
and  common  people;  there  is  no  inkling  of 
the  divine  Presence  on  the  whole  horizon. 
Let  him  "awake  to  soberness  righteously, 
and  sin  not."  Let  him  consecrate  himself 
to  work  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  while  it  is  day, 
however  commonplace  his  day  seems,  and 
see  whether  there  does  not 

shine  the  traffic  of  Jacob's  ladder 
Pitched  betwixt  Heaven  and  Charing  Cross. 

When  we  seem  to  lose  God  because  the 
day  is  breaking,  we  shall  not  find  Him 
again  by  attempting  an  impossible  retreat 
into  the  night,  but  by  advancing  into  the 
day  with  open  eyes.  The  difficulty  is  that 
so  many  have  their  eyes  partially  closed. 
They  are  not  wholly  awake — awake  to 
responsibility,    awake    to    the    wonder    of 


FAITH  AND  KNOWLEDGE  191 

common  facts,  awake  to  the  shining  good- 
ness of  a  life  devoted  to  the  purpose  of  the 
Son  of  man.  "Wherefore  He  saith,  Awake 
thou  that  sleepest  and  arise  from  the  dead, 
and  Christ  shall  shine  upon  thee."  Yes, 
awake  to  all  life's  realities,  the  realities  of 
obligation  and  of  faith  among  them,  and 
see  whether  the  figure  of  Jesus  Christ  which 
perhaps  has  faded  into  obscurity  does  not 
shine  out  again  as  the  Light  of  life ;  and, 
loyally  following  Him,  see  if  through  His 
face  there  does  not  stream  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God,  who  is  with 
us  not  intermittently  but  always,  not  in  the 
shadows  only  but  in  the  broad  day;  see  if 
we  do  not  possess  "waking  thoughts  more 
rich  than  happiest  dreams." 


XII 

THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS 

John  7 :  27.  Howbeit  we  know  this  Man  whence 
He  is:  but  when  the  Christ  cometh,  no  man  knoweth 
whence  He  is. 

John  9:29.  We  know  that  God  hath  spoken  unto 
Moses:  but  as  for  this  Man,  we  know  not  whence 
He  is. 

Here  are  two  apparently  opposite  reasons 
for  rejecting  the  claims  of  Jesus.  Some 
refused  to  recognize  Him  as  the  Christ 
because  they  knew  where  He  came  from: 
"Is  not  this  Jesus,  the  son  of  Joseph,  whose 
father  and  mother  we  know?  We  know  this 
Man,  whence  He  is:  but  when  the  Christ 
Cometh,  no  one  knoweth  whence  He  is." 
Others  objected  to  Him  because  they  knew 
nothing  of  His  antecedents.  Had  He  come 
from  a  distinguished  family  in  Jerusalem, 
and  had  He  possessed  an  influential  back- 
ing, they  might  at  least  have  listened  to 
Him;  but  who  knew  anything  about  this 
young  peasant  from  Galilee?  "As  for  this 
Man,  we  know  not  whence  He  is." 

Their  objections  to  Jesus  represent  two 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS        193 

very  common  tendencies  in  men's  religious 
feelings.  On  the  one  hand,  that  which 
seems  to  us  altogether  inexplicable  we  are 
wont  to  attribute  to  God.  Legal  contracts 
often  contain  a  list  of  all  conceivable 
catastrophes — fire,  disease,  accident,  ship- 
wreck, war — and  conclude  with  the  phrase 
"or  act  of  God,"  to  cover  a  humanly  unfore- 
seeable and  unpreventable  occurrence,  as 
though  in  that,  but  not  in  these  other  events, 
God's  activity  was  to  be  recognized.  If 
some  good  fortune  befalls  us  without  our 
planning  or  working  for  it,  we  call  it  "a 
special  providence,"  while  that  which  we 
bring  about  by  our  own  forethought  and  toil 
does  not  impress  us  as  providential.  The 
Israelites  spoke  of  the  manna  which  they 
collected  in  the  desert  and  for  which  they 
performed  no  labor  as  "corn  of  heaven,"  but 
the  bread  which  they  made  from  the  grain 
they  grew  in  Canaan,  although  far  better 
bread,  was  not  called  heavenly.  When  an 
idea  suddenly  comes  into  our  minds  without 
any  apparent  connection  with  our  previous 
train  of  thought,  and  comes  with  some  force, 
we  say,  "I  don't  know  how  I  came  to  think 
of  it;  it  seems  as  though  God  put  it  into  my 


194  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

mind";  while  in  courses  of  action  which  we 
think  out  very  carefully,  we  are  not  vividly 
conscious  of  being  led  by  God.  "When  the 
Christ  Cometh,  no  one  knoweth  whence  He 
is." 

On  the  other  hand,  whatever  comes  from 
a  venerated  source  is  apt  to  seem  to  us  divine, 
when  the  identical  thing  would  not  convey 
that  impression  if  it  had  another  origin.  If 
we  receive  an  idea  from  a  Bible  verse,  we 
feel  that  it  is  God's  word  to  us,  but  the  same 
thought  occurring  on  the  pages  of  some 
other  book  would  not  produce  the  same 
effect.  If  a  stimulus  to  unselfish  service  is 
given  us  at  the  Communion  table,  we  accept 
it  as  Christ's  direct  inspiration;  if  it  comes 
from  some  story  of  need  read  in  the  daily 
newspaper,  we  are  not  likely  to  think  of 
Christ  as  having  had  anything  to  do  with  it. 
"We  know  that  God  hath  spoken  to  Moses: 
but  as  for  this  Man,  we  know  not  whence 
He  is." 

In  other  words,  origins,  the  whence  of 
things,  have  a  determining  effect  upon  our 
attitude  to  the  things  themselves. 

We  are  just  emerging  from  a  half -century 
which  has  been  characterized  by  marvellous 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS        195 

scientific  discoveries.  The  scientific  mind  is 
particularly  interested  in  investigating  the 
whence  of  things.  The  most  influential  book 
of  the  last  century  bears  the  significant  title, 
"The  Origin  of  the  Species."  And  these 
inquiries  into  origins  have  come  into  conflict 
with  the  religious  feelings  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking. 

It  was  a  shock  to  man's  self-esteem  to  have 
his  beginnings  probed,  and  to  be  told  that 
his  ancestry  was  so  closely  akin  to  that  of 
the  beasts.  William  Watson  puts  the 
scientific  view  and  the  impression  which  its 
statement  makes  upon  us  in  the  lines : 

In  cave  and  bosky  dene 

Of  old  there  crept  and  ran 
The  gibbering  form  obscene 

That  was  and  was  not  man. 
The  desert  beasts  went  by 

In  fairer  covering  clad; 
More  speculative  eye 

The  couchant  lion  had, 
And  goodlier  speech  the  birds,  than  we  when 
we  began. 

A  soul  so  long  deferred 
In  his  blind  brain  he  bore. 

It  might  have  slept  unstirred 
Ten  million  noontides  more. 


196  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Yea,  round  him  darkness  might 

Till  now  her  folds  have  drawn, 
0*er  that  enormous  night 
So  casual  came  the  dawn, 
Such  hues  of  hap  and  hazard  Man's  Emergence 
wore! 

The  same  methods  which  some  scientists 
were  employing  upon  human  origins,  others 
used  in  the  study  of  the  beginnings  of  reli- 
gious institutions.  The  Bible  was  examined, 
and  it  came  as  a  startling,  and  to  many  an 
unwelcome,  surprise  to  be  told  that  the  first 
five  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  not 
written  by  Moses,  but  are  a  compilation 
by  many  hands  of  material  from  half  a 
dozen  or  more  centuries;  that  the  Psalms 
are  not  the  poems  of  David,  but,  like  our 
own  hymnal,  a  collection  of  hymns  from 
a  number  of  authors,  mostly  unknown, 
gathered  together  at  different  times  for 
the  worship  of  the  Jewish  Temple;  that 
many  of  the  prophetic  books — Isaiah,  for 
instance — contain  not  the  messages  of  a 
single  preacher,  but  the  sermons  of  several 
who  lived  perhaps  in  different  centuries. 
On  the  one  hand,  people  had  got  in  the  way 
of  thinking  of  the  Bible  as  God's  very  Word 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS        197 

to  such  a  degree  that  they  disliked  having 
it  analyzed  by  these  rigorous  methods,  and 
did  not  care  to  connect  it  ^vith  human  expe- 
riences. When  they  were  told  how  its  books 
were  put  together,  edited,  revised,  like  other 
books,  it  seemed  to  detract  from  the  Bible's 
sanctity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  connection 
of  particular  books  with  revered  names — 
Genesis  and  the  90th  Psalm  with  Moses, 
the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  the  Song 
of  Songs  with  Solomon,  Lamentations  with 
Jeremiah,  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  the 
Apostle  John — had  appeared  to  add  to  their 
prestige.  To  be  told  that  these  men  were 
not  their  writers  was  disconcerting.  "We 
know  that  God  spake  to  Moses,  and  Solo- 
mon, and  Jeremiah,  and  the  Apostle  John, 
but  as  for  these  anonymous  authors  and 
editors,  we  know  not  whence  they  are." 

Religious  customs,  like  the  Sabbath,  were 
investigated  and  found  to  have  existed  in 
earlier  and  cruder  faiths  than  Israel's.  And 
at  once  men  asked  "If  the  Sabbath  was  an 
ancient  Babylonian  institution,  how  is  it  of 
divine  authority  for  us?" 

Doctrines  were  put  to  a  similar  test.  A 
generation  ago  it  was  commonly  thought 


198  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

that  the  theological  ideas  of  nineteenth 
century  Christians,  like  the  Trinity,  the 
Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  were  identical 
with  those  of  the  first  century,  that  the 
Westminster  Shorter  Catechism  and  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles  were  accurate  repro- 
ductions of  the  beliefs  of  Jesus  and  Paul. 
Historical  study  convinced  scholars  that, 
while  through  aU  the  centuries  Christians 
have  had  similar  religious  experiences,  have 
been  one  in  their  trust  in  God,  their  loyalty 
to  Jesus  Christ,  their  sense  of  His  forgiving 
love  and  redeeming  power  and  inspiring 
Presence,  each  generation  has  set  forth  its 
experience  in  forms  of  its  own.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  is  not  in  the  New 
Testament;  but  the  experiences  of  God  as 
Father,  revealed  in  Christ,  a  present  inspira- 
tion, which  afterwards  were  expressed  in 
the  doctrine,  are  there.  Paul's  explanation 
of  the  cross  was  couched  in  sjonbolic  lan- 
guage that  meant  something  to  the  men  of 
his  day,  but  which  meant  something  different 
to  the  Middle  Ages  and  something  different 
still  to  the  Reformers.  But  men  have  been 
upset  by  this  historical  investigation.  "If 
Paul  thought  thus  and  so,  I  either  want  to 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS        199 

think  it  exactly  as  he  did,  or  it  has  no 
authority  for  me.  We  know  that  God  has 
spoken  to  Paul;  but  as  for  these  modern 
theologians,  we  know  not  whence  they  are." 

Latterly,  the  origin  of  Jesus  Himself  has 
been  under  discussion.  How  are  we  to  think 
of  His  Preexistence  before  Bethlehem? 
Had  He  a  personal,  conscious  life  in  heaven, 
or  did  He  exist  simply  in  the  thought  of 
God,  the  sort  of  existence  spoken  of  in  the 
phrase  in  the  Revelation  where  the  Lamb  is 
said  to  have  been  "slain  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world"?  Others  took  up  the  question 
of  the  virgin  birth.  Is  it  literal,  prose 
history ;  or  a  first-century  way  of  expressing 
that  these  Christians  discovered  unique 
spirituality  in  Jesus? 

These  questions  are  all  as  to  origins: 
"Whence  came  this  part  of  the  Bible,  this 
religious  custom,  this  doctrine?  Whence 
came  Jesus  Christ?" 

In  the  Reformation  period  it  was  a 
burning  question  how  Christ  was  present  in 
the  Lord's  Supper,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
of  English  theologians,  the  judicious  Rich- 
ard Hooker,  wrote:  "I  wish  that  men  would 
more  give  themselves  to  meditate  what  we 


200  UNBTERSITY  SERMONS 

have  by  the  sacrament  and  less  to  dispute 
of  the  manner  how."  And  again,  "What 
these  elements  are  in  themselves  it  skilleth 
not,  it  is  enough  that  to  me  which  take  them 
they  are  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  His 
promise  in  witness  hereof  sufficeth,  His 
word  He  knoweth  which  way  to  accomplish ; 
why  should  any  cogitation  possess  the  mind 
of  a  faithful  communicant  but  this,  'O  my 
God  Thou  art  true,  O  my  soul  thou  art 
happy!'" 

The  "how"  of  anything  never  seemed 
important  to  Jesus.  The  man  in  His 
parable  who  planted  the  seed  was  altogether 
ignorant  of  its  process  of  growth.  "The 
seed  sprang  up  and  grew,  he  knew  not  how." 
And  like  a  sensible  man  while  it  was  grow- 
ing he  slept  and  rose  and  went  about  his 
business.  He  got  the  harvest  without  know- 
ing how  it  had  grown.  Jesus  was  indifferent 
to  origins :  by  their  fruits,  not  by  their  roots, 
ye  shall  know  them. 

A  few  sunmiers  ago  as  I  walked  into  the 
hall  in  the  Vatican  where  the  Apollo  Belve- 
dere stands,  and  was  seating  myself  to  feast 
my  eyes  on  that  glorious  piece  of  sculpture, 
a  fellow  countrywoman  who  was  being  con- 


I 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS         201 

ducted  with  a  party  of  tourists  through  the 
gallery  by  a  garrulous  guide,  seeing  me 
engrossed  in  this  statue,  condescendingly 
turned  back  and  informed  me,  presumably 
to  save  me  from  wasting  my  time,  "He  says 
that  it's  not  original."  She  was  surprised 
and  no  doubt  thought  me  ungrateful  when 
I  continued  to  look  at  it.  "Beauty,"  as 
Emerson  said  of  the  Rhodora,  "is  its  own 
excuse  for  being."  Who  cares  whence  the 
Apollo  came,  whether  it  was  copied,  as  the 
guidebooks  say,  from  a  bronze  original, 
whether  it  was  carved  in  the  third  or  the 
fourth  or  some  other  century  B.  C?  These 
are  all  interesting  details  for  the  scholar, 
and  matters  which  he  can  investigate  unfet- 
tered by  anyone's  preconceived  notions.  But 

A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever: 
Its  loveliness  increases ;  it  will  never 
Pass  into  nothingness. 

It  is 

An  endless  fountain  of  immortal  drink 
Pouring  unto  us  from  the  heaven's  brink. 

It  is  refreshing  to  hear  among  the  con- 
flicting voices  in  the  chapters  in  John  which 
contain  the  disputes  over  Jesus'  origin  this 


202  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

clear,  somewhat  sarcastic,  but  most  sane 
speaker:  "Why,  herein  is  the  marvel,  that 
ye  know  not  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He 
opened  mine  eyes.  If  this  Man  were  not 
from  God,  He  could  do  nothing." 

It  is  right  that  scholars,  consecrated  to 
truth,  should  with  the  utmost  freedom  and 
thoroughness  investigate  everything  con- 
nected with  our  Christian  faith.  It  is  right 
that  the  results  of  their  scholarship  should 
be  embodied  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  at 
present  in  the  study  of  our  Bible  schools. 
It  is  right  that  Christian  fathers  and  mothers 
should  read  books  which  present  these  results 
in  untechnical  form  so  that  they  shall  not 
commit  the  crime  of  teaching  their  children 
things  which  they  must  later  unlearn,  and 
perhaps  unlearn  in  a  spiritual  crisis  which 
may  cost  them  a  serious  struggle.  It  is 
every  waj'-  right  that  we  all  should  strive 
not  merely  to  be  earnest  but  to  be  intelli- 
gent, to  know  everything  that  we  can  know 
about  our  Bibles,  our  religious  customs,  our 
doctrines,  above  all  about  our  Lord.  It  is 
right  that  the  Church  should  honor,  as  it 
has  not  and  does  not  always  do,  those  who 
devote  their  lives  to  painstaking  study.    It 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS         203 

is  right  that  we  who  believe  that  our  God 
is  Light  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all, 
that  our  Lord  Jesus  is  the  Truth,  and  in 
Him  are  all  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge, should  hold  our  minds  open,  expect 
to  receive  new  ideas,  be  prepared  constantly 
to  readjust  our  thought  so  that  it  grows 
broader  and  deeper  and  higher  with  the 
years.  But  we  are  not  left  to  sit  at  the  doors 
of  distinguished  scholars  and  wait  to  hear 
their  results  before  we  know  what  to  believe. 
The  beggar,  blind  from  his  birth,  was  as 
competent  to  judge  of  the  worth  of  Jesus 
as  Nicodemus,  or  any  savant  in  Jerusalem. 
*'Herein  is  the  marvel,  He  opened  mine 
eyes." 

Take  the  Bible.  It  is  most  interesting 
to  learn  the  results  of  modern  scholarship, 
to  know  as  one  reads  the  Fortieth  Chapter 
of  Isaiah,  for  instance,  with  its  "Comfort 
ye,  comfort  ye  My  people,"  that  the  words 
were  spoken  to  discouraged  exiles  in  Baby- 
lon by  a  great  prophet  who  did  his  work 
some  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
Isaiah,  who  spoke  while  Jerusalem  was  still 
in  its  glory;  that  the  Book  of  Daniel  was 
written  to   cheer   and   keep   steadfast   the 


204  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Jews  under  the  persecution  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  in  167  B.  C;  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  not  a  history  like  the  other  three, 
but  a  spiritual  interpretation  of  Jesus  seen 
through  a  remarkable  man's  religious  expe- 
rience. But  all  this  knowledge  of  back- 
grounds and  literary  details  is  after  all  by 
the  way.  Long  before  they  were  known 
the  Bible  was  a  light  to  men's  feet  and  their 
inspiration  to  faith,  hope  and  love.  "Herein 
is  the  marvel"  that  this  Book  opens  eyes 
to  see  God,  to  see  ourselves  as  we  are  and 
as  we  should  be,  to  see  God's  purpose  for 
the  world  He  made,  rules  and  loves.  How 
much  inspiration  are  we  getting  out  of  the 
Bible?  Is  it  our  daily  companion?  Are  we 
letting  it  open  our  eyes  to  our  duty,  our 
peace,  our  exceeding  joy?  Through  how- 
ever various  ways  these  books  have  been  put 
together,  whether  we  know  or  do  not  know 
whence  they  are,  they  could  not  do  what  they 
have  done  and  what  they  are  doing,  were 
they  not  from  God. 

Take  the  Sabbath.  The  word  itself, 
according  to  Babylonian  scholars,  and  the 
testimony  of  the  tablets,  seems  to  indicate 
that  it  existed  as  a  day  of  good  or  evil  omen 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS         205 

long  before  Abraham,  and  that  the  Hebrews 
took  it,  Hke  many  other  customs,  from 
Babylonia  and  remodelled  it  to  fit  their 
religious  beliefs.  Its  lowly  beginning  in  the 
midst  of  primitive  superstitions  is  nothing 
against  it.  We  are  told  that  our  practice 
of  shaking  hands  began  in  the  fear  of  primi- 
tive man.  When  he  met  an  acquaintance  he 
took  hold  of  his  hand  so  that  he  could 
not  draw  his  weapon  and  kill  him.  That 
humble,  altogether  unfriendly  ancestry  does 
not  hinder  us  from  using  the  clasping  of 
hands  as  the  s^Tnbol  of  friendship,  and  as 
an  act  in  the  marriage  service.  Through  it 
we  express  to  our  friends  our  sympathy,  our 
encouragement,  our  love.  The  Sabbath  has 
a  long  history  behind  it,  and  our  Christian 
Sunday  is  no  more  the  Babylonian  or  even 
the  Jewish  Sabbath,  than  our  handshake  is 
the  handshake  of  two  mutually  suspicious 
savages.  Evolution  is  God's  method  of 
developing  His  best  creations.  We  who 
take  the  day  as  a  Sabbath  made  over  and 
glorified  as  the  Lord's  Day,  the  anniversary 
of  Jesus'  resurrection,  to  be  used  in  raising 
our  brethren  and  ourselves  into  harmony 
with  His  life,  find  its  value.    Herein  is  the 


206  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

marvel  that  so  used  it  opens  our  eyes.  Life's 
obligations,  possibilities,  glories  in  fellow- 
ship with  God  through  Jesus  Christ  have, 
as  a  matter  of  personal  history,  been  made 
more  clear  to  us  by  our  keeping  this  day 
holy.  We  covet  its  privileges  for  everyone 
in  the  community.  We  are  anxious  to  see 
our  complex  social  life  so  adjusted  that 
every  man,  whatever  his  trade,  gets  some 
sort  of  Sabbath,  some  Lord's  day  in  each 
week,  which  shall  be  his  high  day.  The 
custom  has  its  authority  for  us  not  from  its 
origin  but  from  its  practically  discovered 
value.  When  we  read  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  where  it  is  said  that  He  who 
worketh  hitherto  Himself  rested,  we  may 
find  the  language  a  poetic  and  picturesque 
way  of  stating  a  truth,  but  a  truth  none  the 
less,  that  a  Sabbath  is  part  of  the  ideal  life 
for  our  Father  and  His  children. 

Take  any  doctrine.  There  were  plants 
long  before  there  was  any  botany.  The 
trees  and  shrubs  were  growing  on  this 
campus  before  scientists  put  out  labels  to 
let  us  know  how  we  who  rejoice  in  their 
beauty  are  to  classify  them  in  our  thought. 
Theology  is  the  attempt  to  form  a  clear 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS        207 

opinion  of  our  religious  experiences.     As 
Sidney  Lanier  says  of  the  laws  of  poetry : 

As  the  poet  mad  with  heavenly  fires 
Flings  men  his  song  white-hot,  then  back  retires, 
Cools  heart,  broods  o'er  the  song  again,  inquires. 
Why  did  I  this,  why  that  ?  and  slowly  draws 
From  Art's  unconscious  act  Art's  conscious  laws, 

SO,  without  knowing  just  what  we  are  doing, 
we  trust  in  God,  follow  Jesus  Christ,  feel 
the  inspiration  of  His  Spirit  prompting  us 
to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  to  walk  humbly 
with  God,  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  those 
who  need  us.  We  pray,  we  hope,  we  sacri- 
fice. Then  we  try  to  think  it  all  out :  Who 
is  this  God  whom  we  trust?  What  control 
has  He  over  the  world,  over  us?  Who  is 
this  Christ  we  follow?  What  is  His  relation 
to  God,  to  us?  What  is  this  Spirit  we  feel 
within  us?  Botany  differs  from  century  to 
century  as  men  learn  more;  but  the  plants 
and  trees  remain  the  same. 

No!  not  quite  the  same.  The  scientific 
study  of  plants  gives  us  skilled  cultivators, 
who  actually  make  the  plants  different,  more 
fruitful,  more  lovely.  Theology  opens 
our  eyes.     The  thoughtful  study  of  our 


208  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

experiences  shows  us  how  to  improve  those 
experiences,  to  get  closer  to  God,  to  grow 
more  like  Christ,  to  be  freer  children  of  the 
Spirit.  All  Christian  doctrines  have  humble 
beginnings,  because  the  religious  life  began 
long  before  the  perfect  experience  of  God  in 
Christ.  One  finds  the  Trinity,  the  Incarna- 
tion, the  Atonement,  in  some  form  in  almost 
every  religion.  The  form  must  continually 
change,  in  order  to  express  the  ever  growing 
experience;  but  the  test  of  any  doctrine  is 
entirely  simple  and  within  the  reach  of  the 
lowliest  Christian.  Does  this  thought  of 
God,  of  Christ,  of  His  cross,  of  His  com- 
panionship with  me,  of  the  Church,  of  the 
Kingdom,  of  the  future  life,  open  my  eyes 
so  that  I  walk  more  intimately  and  clearly 
with  my  Father  in  the  spirit  of  my  Master 
Christ?  Do  not  despise  doctrines  because 
similar  ideas  are  found  in  all  the  faiths  of 
the  world,  degraded  and  exalted.  Try  the 
doctrine  by  using  it.  If  it  is  of  no  service, 
let  it  go.  If  it  opens  our  eyes,  thank  God 
for  it. 

Take  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  His  origin  is 
shrouded  in  mystery.  How  we  are  to  think 
of  Him  before  His  appearance  as  a  Babe 


THE  FALLACY  OF  ORIGINS         209 

in  Mary's  arms,  how  we  are  to  conceive  of 
His  entrance  into  the  world,  may  be  quite 
insoluble.  Some  may  take  New  Testament 
phrases  literally,  others  in  some  other  way. 
What  matters?  However  He  came  here, 
here  He  is.  Look  at  Him.  If  there  be  a 
God  whom  we  could  love  with  all  our  heart, 
soul,  mind  and  strength,  is  not  this  Man  His 
embodiment?  If  there  be  an  Ideal  to  which 
we  would  have  our  lives,  and  the  lives  of  all 
our  brethren  conform,  can  we  think  of  a 
higher  than  He?  If  we  trust  and  follow 
Him,  do  we  find  ourselves  dissatisfied,  long- 
ing for  some  clearer  Light,  some  warmer 
Love,  some  loftier  Inspiration,  some  richer, 
usefuller,  stronger  Life?  Or  do  we  find 
ourselves  saying. 

Thou,  O  Christ,  art  all  I  want. 
More  than  all  in  Thee  I  find? 

We  cannot  prove  His  miracles  of  long  ago; 
"herein  is  the  marvel.  He  opened  mine  eyes." 
It  may  possibly  be  that  some  of  them  did 
not  happen,  but  are  parables  of  spiritual 
experiences;  "one  thing  I  know,  whereas  I 
was  blind,  now  I  see."  Men  may  be  dis- 
puting as  to  whence  He  came,  we  rest  secure 


210  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

in  our  personal  knowledge  of  what  He  is. 
We  have  done  what  He  told  us  to  do,  done 
it  hesitatingly  and  haltingly  and  awkwardly 
like  blind  men ;  but  in  the  doing  of  His  will, 
our  eyes  were  opened.  We  have  a  new  view 
of  life,  live  in  a  new  world,  see  God  as  our 
Father,  see  His  Kingdom  of  justice,  mercy 
and  faithfulness  as  the  one  purpose  we 
cannot  but  live  and  labor  to  accomplish. 
And  because  our  vision  splendid  came 
through  obedience  to  Jesus,  we  feel  bound 
to  commend  Him  with  all  the  force  we  can 
to  every  man,  to  bring  every  man  to  a  like 
obedience.  Our  thoughts  of  Christ  may 
change ;  they  will  surely  grow  with  the  expe- 
riences of  the  years  and  of  eternity;  but  our 
personal  loyalty  to  Him  cannot  alter.  It 
is  based  on  one  indubitable  fact:  "herein  is 
the  marvel.  He  opened  mine  eyes." 

If  there  be  one  pair  of  unseeing  eyes  here 
this  morning,  why  not  let  Him  open  them 
now?  How?  Obey  Him  in  the  first 
impulse  by  which  He  moves  us  to  do  any- 
thing for  His  cause. 


XIII 
THE  REALITY  OF  GOD 

"The  living  God" — an  expression  found  frequently 
in  both  Testaments. 

At  a  class  reunion  recently  two  close 
friends,  who  had  not  had  a  chance  to  talk 
together  frankly  since  graduation,  were 
sitting,  exchanging  their  opinions  on  the 
deeper  things  of  hfe,  and  the  conversation 
gradually  drifted  around  to  the  subject  of 
religious  conviction.  One  said  to  the  other 
something  as  follows : 

"When  I  was  in  college  I  used  to  be 
bothered  by  doubts  whether  all  the  miracles 
mentioned  in  the  Bible  actually  happened; 
I  had  trouble  believing  in  the  divinity  of 
Christ;  some  kinds  of  prayer  that  I  used  to 
hear  a  certain  type  of  fellow  offering  in 
class  prayer  meetings  annoyed  me,  for  I 
could  not  see  how  God  needed  their  remind- 
ers and  suggestions.  But  none  of  these 
things  concern  me  much  at  present:  it  isn't 


212  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

that  I  have  settled  them  satisfactorily  one 
way  or  another ;  but  that  a  great  deal  bigger 
and  more  fundamental  question  keeps  forc- 
ing itself  upon  me.  Is  what  I  call  *God'  a 
label  for  a  real  Being,  or  simply  a  label  for 
an  idea  that  has  come  to  me  partly  as  an 
inheritance  from  the  aspirations  and  super- 
stitions of  the  past,  and  partly  as  an  expres- 
sion for  the  highest  ideal  I  can  imagine? 

"I  enjoy  reading  the  Bible  a  good  deal 
more  than  I  used  to.  Its  superb  language, 
its  amazing  literary  skill,  the  fascination  of 
its  stories,  the  beauty  of  its  thoughts,  capti- 
vate me.  I  spend  part  of  every  Sunday 
afternoon  reading  selections  from  it  to  my 
children,  although  I  usually  have  hard  work 
dodging  some  of  the  questions  they  put  to 
me.  I  do  not  disagree  when  anybody 
applies  the  adjective  'divine'  to  Jesus;  there 
is  no  one  else  who  so  fully  deserves  it,  and 
there  is  no  word  in  the  dictionary  in  my 
estimation  too  exalted  for  Him.  The  more 
I  study  the  accounts  of  His  life,  the  more 
I  look  at  the  results  of  His  influence, 
the  more  I  think  about  Him,  the  more 
wonderful  He  appears  to  me. 

"But  the  trouble  is  that  I  cannot  see  that 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  213 

the  adjective  ^divine'  belongs  to  any  other 
Being.  I  don't  quarrel  with  the  divinity  of 
Jesus,  but  what  of  the  reality  of  that  other 
He  called  'Father'?  The  truth  is  that  when 
I  get  down  on  my  knees  to  pray,  I  seem  to 
be  talking  into  empty  air.  I  have  an  idea 
in  my  head  that  I  call  *God' ;  I  suppose  it's 
about  the  best  notion  I  own,  the  most  beauti- 
ful article  in  my  mental  furniture.  It's  a 
notion  that  is  very  stimulating  and  comfort- 
ing to  lots  of  people.  It's  been  in  my  own 
head  so  long  that  I  have  difficulty  in  flinging 
it  out  of  doors,  exactly  as  I  hate  to  give  the 
ash  man  a  bit  of  furniture  that  I  have  looked 
at  all  my  hfe.  But  I  don't  seem  to  be  able 
to  get  away  from  the  feeling  that  it's  just 
a  notion ;  and  this  feeling  robs  it  of  all  value. 
You  can't  get  up  much  affection  for  a  mere 
thought  in  your  own  brain.  You  can't  rely 
on  it  for  anything.  There  isn't  much 
communion  in  a  one-sided  conversation, 
which  makes  you  feel  about  as  idiotic  as 
when  you  are  caught  talking  aloud  to  your- 
self on  the  street." 

One  might  well  question  whether,  if 
religion  had  no  more  substantial  reality  in 
it  than  that,  it  could  have  survived  so  long, 


214  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

and  been  prized  so  highly  by  millions  of 
hard-headed  and  practically  successful  men 
and  women.  It  is  a  somewhat  dubious 
comphment  to  pay  Jesus  to  give  Him  the 
loftiest  adjective  in  one's  vocabulary,  but 
consider  Him  deluded  in  His  fundamental 
conviction  of  the  Father,  to  whose  business 
He  devoted  His  life,  in  whose  personal 
fellowship  He  thought  He  found  His 
strength  and  hope  and  peace,  and  into 
whose  hands  He  consigned  His  spirit.  The 
imaginations  of  little  children  often  impute 
life  to  dolls  or  to  some  invisible  playmate, 
with  whom  they  carry  on  long  conversations, 
or  go  for  a  walk,  or  sit  down  to  a  meal.  But 
there  comes  a  day  when  the  child  looks 
shamefaced  when  one  alludes  to  a  remark 
attributed  to  the  doll  or  mentions  the  make- 
believe  playmate.  A  growing  acquaintance 
with  life  has  banished  these  fancies  and  com- 
pelled the  imagination  to  adjust  itself  with 
facts.  A  make-believe  playmate  may  con- 
tent a  child  of  four,  but  at  eight  he  will  crave 
the  comradeship  of  flesh  and  blood  com- 
panions. Is  it  seriously  credible  that 
humanity  should  have  satisfied  itself  for 
these  centuries  with  a  make-believe  Deity? 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  215 

To  be  sure  God  is  a  notion  in  our  heads. 
He  could  not  be  there  in  any  other  form; 
that  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  exist  in 
each  other's  heads.  We  say  that  we  see  each 
other:  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  see  a  small 
image,  the  fraction  of  an  inch  in  dimensions, 
on  the  retina  of  our  eyes,  which  our  nerves 
take  and  mysteriously  transmute  into  an 
idea  in  our  minds.  We  say  that  we  ex- 
change thoughts:  we  cram  some  idea  into 
a  word,  and  let  the  sound  waves  carry  it  to 
an  ear  fitted  to  receive  and  convey  it  to 
another  man's  mind.  Through  images  and 
words  translating  themselves  into  notions 
we  hold  intercourse  with  one  another.  And 
an  amazing  intercourse  it  is!  Think  what 
freight  of  influence,  of  friendship,  of  love, 
sight  and  sound  waves,  images  and  words, 
the  mechanism  of  eyes  and  tongues  and 
ears  and  brains  is  continually  dehveringi 
How  full  of  results  interperson  conmaerce 
is! 

But  the  same  image  and  the  same  word 
may  mean  such  different  things  to  different 
people.  When  a  class  enters  college,  a 
freshman  has  a  confused  impression  of  many 
faces  whom  he  sees  in  the  recitation  room 


216  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

or  at  a  class  meeting.  Gradually  the  im- 
pressions assort  themselves,  and  by  senior 
year,  while  many  images  that  catch  his  eye 
are  images  of  men  who  remain  simply  class- 
mates, with  no  very  rich  personal  meaning 
for  him,  others  are  the  images  of  the  men 
who  have  become  his  probably  best  friends 
for  life.  Why  is  it  that  the  same  image 
falling  on  the  eyes  of  several  hundred  men 
has  such  a  different  significance  for  some 
than  for  others?  All  attempts  to  account 
for  our  friendships  are  unsatisfactory.  We 
usually  fall  back  on  such  expressions  as,  "I 
took  to  him,  and  he  to  me";  "We  seemed 
to  hit  it  off";  "We  drew  together  naturally." 

The  same  word  falls  upon  two  sets  of  ears 
with  such  entirely  different  effects.  To  one 
it  is  a  sound  in  an  unknown  tongue;  to 
another  it  carries  inestimable  love. 

Life's  circumstances  are  pretty  much  the 
same  for  everybody — the  same  changing 
seasons,  the  same  heat  and  cold,  the  same 
happiness  and  pain,  the  same  success  and 
failure,  the  same  life  and  death.  The  differ- 
ence in  men's  lots  is  inconsiderable  compared 
with  the  sameness.  But  how  differently 
people  interpret  their  lives,  and  how  vastly 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  217 

different  is  the  value  they  set  upon  them! 
It  is  perhaps  natural  for  the  man  who,  like 
Macbeth,  says. 

Life  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury. 
Signifying  nothing, 

to  hold  that  those  who  get  more  out  of  life 
simply  imagine  the  more  in  their  own 
brains ;  but  those  who,  like  Jesus,  find  a  kind 
and  thoughtful  Providence  even  in  the  fall 
of  a  poor,  dead  sparrow,  will  hardly  be 
persuaded  that  the  other  point  of  view  is 
correct. 

Shall  we  say  that  he  who  gets  least  or 
he  who  gets  most  out  of  anything  under- 
stands it  more  truly?  Have  we  any  more 
convincing  test  of  the  possession  of  truth, 
than  that  which  a  man  can  do  with  what  he 
thinks  he  possesses?  One  man  understands 
the  truth  about  electricity  sufficiently  to 
devise  a  lightning  rod  and  protect  his  house; 
another  can  make  electricity  light  his  house, 
carry  his  voice  a  thousand  miles,  bear  a  mes- 
sage over  a  continent  and  under  an  ocean 
to  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  The  first  man 
was  in  possession  of  truth  as  far  as  he 


218  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

went,  but  the  second  has  gone  farther  and 
possesses  more  truth. 

From  the  dawn  of  history  some  men  have 
succeeded  in  getting  more  out  of  the  world's 
life  than  others  could  see  that  it  contained. 
They  got  this  "more"  because  they  believed 
that  back  of  and  through  it  there  was  an 
Unseen  with  which  they  could  establish 
contact,  an  Unseen  which  they  found  not 
empty  but  inhabited.  Exactly  as  men  have 
fellowship  with  one  another  through  images 
or  words  that  convey  meanings,  so  through 
symbols  they  have  had  communion  with  the 
Invisible.  One  can  recall  a  long  line  of  such 
symbols,  from  the  crudest  fetish  to  the 
Figure  of  the  Son  of  man,  which  have 
spoken  to  men  of  the  Divine.  There  has 
been  a  struggle  for  existence  and  a  survival 
of  the  fittest  among  the  conceptions  of 
Deity;  and  in  this  struggle  Jesus  has  over- 
come, and  is  more  and  more  on  missionary 
fields  overcoming,  all  competitors.  From 
His  personality  we  gain  more  divine  impres- 
sions than  from  any  other.  He  awakens  in 
us  the  most  religious  response;  He  calls  out 
our  trust,  our  obedience,  our  adoration,  our 
love.     His  image,  borne  to  us  by  the  light 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  219 

waves  in  the  experiences  of  His  followers 
through  the  centuries,  brings  more  that  is 
of  supreme  worth — inspiration,  hope,  wis- 
dom, power  to  change  us  into  His  own  like- 
ness. Through  this  image,  transmitted  by 
the  New  Testament  pages  and  the  lives  of 
many  generations  of  Christian  men  and 
women,  we  find  the  Invisible  opening  up 
to  us,  getting  into  touch  with  us,  giving  to 
us  certain  most  precious  things  which  we 
invariably  associate  with  personal  com- 
panionship, giving  us  nothing  less  than  a 
sense  of  the  friendship  with  us  of  a  Christ- 
like God.  Jesus'  image  from  the  past 
establishes  for  us  a  present  connection  with 
the  Unseen,  which  we  are  unable  to  explain 
in  any  other  way  than  by  calling  it  "inter- 
person  commerce." 

And  what  an  incalculable  amount  such  a 
relation  with  a  living  divine  Comrade  adds 
to  life  I  Listen  to  a  few  familiar  expressions 
from  men  who  wrote  in  the  conviction  that 
they  possessed  it:  "Ye  are  the  sons  of  the 
living  God";  "to  serve  the  living  and  true 
God";  "the  living  God  is  among  you";  "we 
are  a  temple  of  the  living  God";  "to  this 


220  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

end  we  labor  and  strive,  because  we  have 
our  hope  set  on  the  living  God." 

Do  those  understand  the  facts  of  life  most 
correctly  who  get  the  most  out  of  them? 
Does  he  understand  his  classmate  best  to 
whom  his  image  is  merely  that  of  a  man 
with  whom  he  happens  to  be  thrown  for 
four  years,  or  he  to  whom  his  image  conveys 
a  wealth  of  friendship?  Does  he  interpret 
a  word  aright  to  whom  it  is  a  sound  signify- 
ing nothing,  or  he  to  whom  it  carries  infor- 
mation and  affection?  Would  the  friend, 
whose  words  we  reported  a  moment  ago, 
have  been  really  more  faithful  to  truth,  had 
he,  doing  violence  to  his  sentiment,  allowed 
the  most  helpful  notion  in  his  mind  to  be 
carried  out?  If  through  the  image  which 
your  classmate  presents  to  your  eye  you 
receive  from  him  friendship,  you  do  not 
question  the  reahty  of  his  existence;  he  is 
your  living  friend.  If  the  notion  of  God 
in  a  man's  head  is  the  best  notion  there,  the 
notion  from  which  he  derives  most  solid  and 
substantial  comfort,  stimulus,  power,  does  it 
not  carry  its  own  proof  of  correspondence 
to  reality?  Can  a  man  expect  to  climb  out- 
side of  himself,  and  from  some  external 


I 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  221 

position  see  that  his  notion  tallies  with  an 
objective  fact?  Suppose  when  he  prays  he 
feels  himself  talking  into  empty  air,  is  he 
to  depend  on  his  momentary  feeling  as  the 
final  test  of  actuality,  and  could  the  air 
transmit  an  image  to  him  of  the  unseen  God, 
and  prove  itself  not  empty?  A  personal 
God  can  image  Himself  only  in  a  Person; 
and  it  is  what  the  image  itself  manages  to 
convey  to  us  that  establishes  what  is  behind 
it. 

To  be  sure  all  our  classmates  do  not 
appeal  to  us  alike,  nor  are  we  polyglots  to 
understand  words  from  all  tongues.  It 
requires  a  capacity  in  us  to  interpret  and 
answer  the  man  we  meet  and  the  word  we 
hear.  Keats  has  an  interesting  sentence  in 
one  of  his  letters  which  runs:  "Ethereal 
things  may  at  least  be  thus  real,  divided 
imder  three  heads — things  real,  things  semi- 
real,  and  nothings";  and  in  the  first  class 
he  itemizes :  "Things  real,  such  as  existences 
of  sun,  moon  and  stars,  and  passages  from 
Shakespeare"  It  was  the  poet's  soul  in  him 
to  whom  the  elder  poet  spoke.  It  is  the 
godlike  heart  to  whom  alone  God  can  mani- 
fest Himself.    Deep  calleth  unto  deep ;  deep 


222  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

cannot  call  to  shallow.  The  pure  in  heart 
see  God.  The  colloquial  expression  we  used 
a  moment  ago  in  explaining  the  origin  of 
friendship,  is  a  not  inapt  description  of  the 
commencement  of  the  most  vital  religious 
experiences:  "He  took  to  me,  and  I  to 
Him." 

Here  is  the  Figure  of  Jesus  Christ;  do 
we  take  to  Him?  He  manifestly  takes  to 
us;  we  cannot  get  away  from  the  feehng 
that  He  is  reaching  out  to  us.  Do  we 
answer  that  outreach?  Does  Jesus  Christ 
mean  enough  to  us  to  command  our 
obedience  and  enlist  our  devotion  in  His 
purpose?  If  so,  something  immeasurably 
great  is  coming  to  us  through  Him,  and  we 
are  on  the  road  to  the  living  God;  or  rather, 
the  living  God  is  coming  to  us.  Our  evi- 
dence that  our  classmate  is  a  real  friend  to 
us  does  not  consist  in  anything  outside  of 
the  friendly  impression  he  makes  upon  us. 
The  proof  of  God's  actuality  is  not  outside 
of  the  present  friendship  He  gives  us 
through  the  image  of  Jesus.  We  may  not 
have  a  vivid  feeling  of  His  reality;  feelings 
vary  with  temperaments  and  moods ;  but  in 
devotion  to  Jesus  a  wisdom  and  power  and 


I 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  223 

love  are  given  us,  that  sooner  or  later  force 
us  to  feel  that  we  are  in  conscious  fellow- 
ship with  God.  "If  a  man  love  Me,  he  will 
keep  My  word,  and  My  Father  will  love 
him  and  We  will  come  unto  him,  and  make 
Our  abode  with  him." 

The  living  God — ^is  He  alive  to  us?  A 
living  God  must  be  a  thinking  and  a  speak- 
ing God.  Does  it  occur  to  us  that  He  is 
thinking  of  us,  has  a  specific  purpose  for 
us,  wishes  most  eagerly  that  we  should  grasp 
and  fulfill  it?  Do  we  listen  for  His  thought 
through  some  divine  word — a  Christlike 
suggestion  in  a  book,  from  a  friend's  lips, 
in  an  experience,  in  our  own  thoughts?  Do 
we  interpret  every  Christlike  idea  that 
reaches  our  minds  as  a  thought  that  has 
been  first  in  God's  mind,  and  has  been 
spoken  personally  by  Him  to  us  and  carried 
through  the  media  which  transmit  the 
messages  of  Spirit  to  spirit? 

A  living  God  must  be  an  experiencing 
God.  We  measure  life  by  capacity  for 
experience;  that  is  the  difference  between 
a  stone  and  a  man.  The  events  in  our 
world's  existence,  in  our  own  and  our 
friends'  lives,  have  an  effect  on  God;  they 


224  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

enter  into  His  life.  That  through  which 
Jesus  passed  centuries  ago — His  Mount 
of  Transfiguration,  His  Gethsemane,  His 
Calvary,  His  conquered  grave — speaks  to 
us  of  something  going  on  now  in  the  expe- 
rience of  the  living  God.  Our  consecrations 
to  fulfill  righteousness  give  us  the  sense  of 
a  responding  "Thou  art  My  beloved  son," 
and  our  treacheries  and  selfishnesses  erect 
a  cross  in  a  Heart  where  love  is  pierced  by 
and  for  us.  Do  we  consider  how  we  are 
affecting  the  living  God? 

A  living  God  must  be  a  doing  God. 
Maurice  said  that  Thomas  Carlyle  believed 
in  a  God  who  lived  till  the  death  of  Oliver 
Cromwell;  but  "My  Father  worketh  even 
until  now."  Are  we  in  the  habit  of  connect- 
ing every  Christlike  occurrence  with  His 
direct  activity — every  act  of  generosity, 
every  movement  of  men's  thoughts  towards 
justice,  every  craving  for  truth,  every  over- 
throw of  oppression,  every  outgoing  of 
sympathy,  every  self-sacrifice?  Oh,  but 
these  are  all  men's  doings.  Yes,  everything 
that  Jesus  did  long  ago  was  His  own  doing, 
but  His  discerning  eye  saw  through  it 
another  Factor:   "The  Father  abiding  in 


THE  REALITY  OF  GOD  225 

Me  doeth  His  works."  If  we  are  finding 
the  Jesus  of  the  past  an  image  through 
whom  the  living  God  conveys  something 
of  Himself  to  us,  in  every  Jesus-like  move- 
ment in  the  consciences,  the  purposes,  the 
lives  of  people  today  we  must  see  God 
present  and  active.  Do  we  recognize  Him, 
enter  into  partnership  with  Him,  feel  confi- 
dent of  the  success  of  all  that  is  Jesus-like 
because  the  living  God  is  in  and  behind  it, 
and  take  our  part  with  it  hopefully  as  those 
who  know  that  their  indomitable  Ally  is 
with  them  on  the  field? 

The  living  God!  What  a  difference  it 
makes  whether  He  is  alive  to  us  or  not, 
literally  a  world  of  difference,  for  we  dwell 
in  a  totally  different  universe  when  He  is 
alive  in  it  with  us. 

How  pathetic  it  will  be  when  some 
of  us  are  unexpectedly  made  aware  that 
He  is  alive  and  has  been  near  us  all  along, 
although  we  never  suspected  His  presence, 
or  answered  His  pleading,  or  had  anything 
to  do  with  Him,  the  living  God  I 

How  tragic,  if  we  never  awake  to  that 
recognition;  if  the  image  of  Jesus  never 
succeeds  in  conveying  anything  to  us ;  if  the 


226  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Word  made  flesh  in  Him  continues  to 
signify  nothing;  and  we  go  through  life  and 
into  death  alone,  while  through  the  friend- 
liest possible  expression  of  Himself — 
through  the  Face  of  Jesus  Christ — God 
has  been  trying  to  get  our  attention,  arouse 
our  sympathy,  win  our  friendship,  and  give 
us  Himself,  the  Christlike  Father,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth — ^the  living  God! 


XIV 
RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT? 

Isaiah  46:  1,  8,  4.  Bel  boweth  down,  Nebo 
stoopeth;  their  idols  are  upon  the  beasts,  and  upon 
the  cattle:  the  things  that  ye  carried  about  are  made 
a  load,  a  burden  to  the  weary  beast.  Hearken  unto 
Me,  O  house  of  Jacob,  and  all  the  remnant  of  the 
house  of  Israel,  that  have  been  borne  by  Me  from 
their  birth,  that  have  been  carried  from  the  womb; 
and  even  to  old  age  I  am  He,  and  even  to  hoar  hairs 
will  I  carry  you:  I  have  made,  and  I  will  bear;  yea, 
I  will  carry,  and  will  deliver. 

Here  is  a  contrast  between  gods  that  men 
carry  and  a  God  who  carries  men;  between 
religion  as  a  load  and  religion  as  a  lift.  The 
prophet  draws  a  graphic  picture  of  the  huge 
images  of  the  gods  of  Babylon  bobbing  and 
swaying  in  a  most  absurdly  undignified 
fashion  on  the  backs  of  straining  and  sweat- 
ing beasts,  as  their  frightened  devotees  try- 
to  bear  them  off  to  a  place  of  safety 
before  the  invading  Persians.  "Things  you 
paraded   about,"   he   derisively   labels   the 


228  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

deities  of  these  image-revering  Babylonians, 
referring  to  the  processions  in  which  these 
gods  were  borne  whom  now  their  worship- 
pers carry  off  in  such  unceremonious  haste. 
And  he  compares  them  with  the  living  God 
of  Israel's  experience,  who  had  taken  the 
infant  nation  in  His  arms  at  its  birth  in 
Egypt,  and  had  been  marching  majestically 
through  the  centuries  bearing  it  securely. 
"Even  to  old  age  I  am  He,  and  even  to  hoar 
hairs  will  I  carry  you:  I  have  made,  and  I 
will  bear ;  yea,  I  will  carry,  and  will  deliver." 

There  are  many  men  who  view  religion 
as  a  burden.  As  they  look  at  it,  a  Christian 
has  to  accept  certain  ideas  regarding  God, 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Bible,  prayer,  the  future 
life,  which  are  hard  notions  to  make  one's 
self  receive.  The  intelligence  has  to  be 
forced  under  them,  much  as  an  unwilling 
mule  is  compelled  to  stand  still  and  be 
loaded  with  its  pack. 

A  Christian  has  to  adopt  certain  customs, 
such  as  saying  his  prayers,  attending  public 
worship  regularly,  observing  a  ceremony 
like  the  Lord's  Supper,  reading  his  Bible 
every  day;  and  these  customs  impress  them 
as  a  bore.    Life  lays  upon  them  inescapable 


I 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    229 

duties;  they  cannot  see  why  they  should 
cumber  themselves  with  these  additional 
loads.  The  prayers  they  were  taught  in 
childhood  have  become  useless  luggage 
which  they  carry  along  with  them  for 
sentiment's  sake;  they  do  not  feel  them  of 
any  real  power.  Church  services  are  frankly 
an  irksome  burden  beneath  which  they  would 
not  place  their  backs  unless  they  were  con- 
strained to.  The  Bible  is  heavy  reading, 
and  with  the  idea  of  enlightening  themselves 
(which  is  a  prevalent  passion)  they  usually 
let  the  Bible  alone.  They  may  have  brought 
a  copy  with  them  to  college  which  was  given 
them  by  someone  they  love,  or  presented  to 
them  publicly  on  a  memorable  occasion ;  but 
it  lies  unopened  on  their  bureau  or  shelf. 
It  never  enters  their  minds  that  daily 
contact  with  its  pages  would  refresh  and 
invigorate  them. 

A  Christian  has  to  take  upon  himself 
depressing  obligations.  His  conscience 
keeps  piling  upon  his  shoulders  a  mass  of 
responsibilities.  The  moral  tone  of  the  col- 
lege is  in  part  his  concern;  the  agencies  at 
work  in  it  for  righteousness  have  a  claim 
upon  his  interest  and  time  and  energy;  the 


230  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

attitude  his  classmates  take  towards  his 
divine  Friend  touches  his  sense  of  honor  and 
loyalty,  and  he  feels  that  it  is  laid  upon  him 
to  see  to  it  that  they  do  not  misjudge  and 
misunderstand  his  God.  Above  all  his  con- 
science forces  him  to  judge  himself  by  an 
impossibly  high  standard,  by  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  to  task  himself  with  every 
secret  thought,  every  personal  ambition, 
every  acquiescence  in  social  conventions, 
every  expressed  opinion  that  discords  with 
the  heart  of  his  Master.  And  to  many  this 
Christian  conscientiousness  is  an  intolerable 
burden.  Their  consciences,  they  think,  are 
sufficiently  troublesome,  constraining  them 
to  assume  this  and  that  obligation,  without 
having  religion  break  their  backs  by  heaping 
on  a  great  many  more. 

Our  prophet  would  tell  them  frankly  that 
a  burdensome  rehgion  is  a  false  rehgion; 
that  a  god  they  think  of  in  certain  ideas 
which  they  force  themselves  to  believe,  wor- 
ship in  forms  they  spur  themselves  to  keep 
up,  and  serve  in  duties  their  consciences 
strap  upon  their  unwilling  backs,  is  a  man- 
made  god,  a  mere  idol,  not  the  living  and 
true  Creator.    He  would  assure  them  that 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    231 

the  religion  which  they  feel  they  do  not 
want,  they  do  well  not  to  want;  it  is  only  a 
revival  of  ancient  paganism.  Religion  that 
is  a  load  is  not  rehgion,  is  not  fellowship 
with  the  Most  High  God.  The  test,  he 
suggests,  by  which  a  man  can  find  out 
whether  he  is  dealing  with  an  idol  or  with 
the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  is  this:  Do 
you  feel  yourself  carrying  your  religion,  or 
do  you  feel  that  it  carries  you :  is  it  a  weight 
or  is  it  wings? 

A  Christian's  beliefs  are  not  ideas  which 
he  compels  his  mind  to  accept;  they  are 
convictions  which  grip  him.  They  appear 
to  come  to  him  with  hands  and  arms, 
and  to  lay  hold  of  his  intelligence;  he  is 
aware  of  being  picked  up  and  carried  along 
by  them.  The  truth  takes  him  off  his  feet, 
and  he  is  conscious  of  resting  on  it,  rather 
than  on  ground  of  his  own  choosing.  At 
first  he  may  struggle,  and  attempt  to  get 
free ;  or,  perhaps  of tener,  he  lies  quietly,  held 
fast  from  the  start.  After  he  has  been 
carried  some  while,  it  never  occurs  to  him 
to  break  loose  from  the  grasp  of  these  con- 
victions ;  he  rests  in  them,  and  is  borne  along 
by  them  with  supremest  satisfaction. 


232  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Take  any  of  the  fundamental  Christian 
convictions — the  lordship  of  Jesus,  and  His 
power  to  make  strong,  wise,  good,  the  man 
who  obeys  Him;  the  Christlikeness  of  God, 
with  whom  as  our  Father  we  live  and  work 
in  Jesus ;  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  which, 
read  under  the  guidance  of  Christ's  Spirit, 
supplies  us  with  stimulating,  correcting, 
comforting,  transforming  disclosures  of  our 
God ;  the  cross  as  the  measure  of  God's  love 
to  us  and  of  our  duty  to  men,  drawing  us 
irresistibly  to  His  heart  and  making  us 
take  every  human  being,  even  those  we  like 
least  and  those  we  have  never  seen,  to  our 
hearts ;  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  social  order 
of  justice,  kindness  and  faithfulness  which 
our  Father  devotes  Himself  to  bring  to  pass 
and  to  which  we.  His  sons,  are  committed; — 
these  beliefs  are  not  loads  imposed  upon 
Christian  minds. 

We  may  remember  the  day  when  one  of 
these  convictions  first  came  to  us,  like  a 
towering  giant  Truth,  and  caught  us  up  in 
its  arms.  We  cannot  forget  the  sensation 
of  being  raised  by  it,  the  feeling  of  security 
and  satisfaction  in  its  strong  hold,  the  new 
outlook  we  had  from  that  unusual  height. 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    233 

Perhaps  we  cannot  recall  a  day  when  any 
of  these  behefs  first  met  us,  for  we  have 
been  carried  in  their  embrace  from  our 
birth,  as  they  carried  our  fathers  before  us. 
But  there  came  a  time  when  with  growing 
knowledge  we  looked  up  critically  into  the 
face  of  the  famihar  truth  that  had  so  long 
held  us.  Our  fathers  spoke  admiringly  of 
this  and  that  feature  of  its  face;  and  these 
did  not  happen  to  be  the  features  that 
appealed  to  us;  but  none  the  less  the  face 
into  which  we  were  looking  with  the  sharp- 
ness of  trained  and  inquisitive  eyes  was  to 
us  the  face  of  truth.  We  had  no  desire  to 
break  away;  we  could  not  fancy  our  intelli- 
gence thinking  otherwise.  Or,  if  in  a 
moment  of  restiveness  we  attempted  to 
shake  loose  and  get  down  and  stand  on  our 
own  feet  entirely  independent  of  and  apart 
from  this  truth,  we  discovered  that  it  had 
so  tenacious  a  grip  on  our  intelligence  that 
we  could  not  get  away  from  it.  It  kept 
convincing  and  reconvincing  us;  and  there 
was  nothing  for  us  but  to  lie  easily  and 
confidently,  saying,  "I  am  held;  I  cannot 
think  in  any  other  way."  And  if  we  are 
really  being  carried  along  by  the  conviction, 


234  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

we  would  not  be  loosed  from  its  grasp  for 
anjrthing  in  the  wide  world ;  it  is  bearing  us 
into  life. 

If  any  man  here  is  trying  to  make  himself 
believe  anjrthing  about  God,  or  Christ,  or 
the  Bible,  or  the  Christian  life,  let  him  be 
sure  that  he  is  looking  at  some  man-made 
view  of  the  Divine,  a  mere  idol.  When 
God's  truth  comes  along,  it  does  its  own 
convincing.  There  is  no  getting  away  from 
it.  Its  inescapableness  is  the  test  of  its 
divineness. 

If  any  man  here  has  been  held  under 
certain  conceptions  of  religious  truth  which 
he  finds  his  education  or  his  growing  expe- 
rience of  life  taking  from  him,  let  him  not 
grieve.  Some  old  Bel  or  Nebo  has  been 
unstrapped  from  his  back — ^that  is  all.  The 
living  Truth  cannot  be  taken  from  us;  or 
rather,  we  cannot  be  snatched  out  of  His 
arms. 

We  are  never  to  try  to  make  ourselves 
believe  anything;  we  are  to  look  up  trust- 
fully into  the  face  of  the  truth  from  which 
we  cannot  get  away,  and  let  it  take  us  up, 
and  hold  and  carry  us.  We  are  never  to 
be  sorry  for  any  belief  that  is  wrested  from 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    235 

us;  but  to  congratulate  ourselves  that  Bel 
and  Nebo,  however  helpful  they  may  have 
seemed,  have  been  pulled  off,  that  the  living 
God  may  have  a  chance  of  laying  hold  of 
our  minds. 

Or  take  the  Christian  habits  of  private 
prayer,  public  worship,  sacraments,  Bible 
study.  If  they  seem  weights  to  us,  not 
wings,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  are  not  in 
touch  with  God  through  them.  The  trouble 
may  be  that  we  are  not  using  them  to  gain 
fellowship  with  Him.  If  we  really  want 
God,  it  is  not  likely  that  we  shall  be  bored 
by  these  means  of  realizing  His  presence  and 
entering  His  companionship.  They  are  not 
arbitrarily  laid  out  rounds  of  exercise,  like 
the  prescribed  circle  in  a  prison  courtyard 
about  which  jailors  walk  convicts  for  their 
health;  they  are  the  beaten  tracks  free  pil- 
grims after  God  have  worn  through  the 
ages,  the  paths  every  believer  with  a  true 
experience  of  Him  bids  us  take  to  find  and 
be  with  the  Most  High. 

Or  the  trouble  may  be  in  the  form  of  the 
prayer,  the  public  worship,  the  Bible  study 
we  employ.  Others  can  open  for  us  a  great 
highway   to    God,    but   no   man   can   tell 


236  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

another  on  just  what  foot  of  ground  his 
steps  must  fall.  Prayer,  public  worship,  the 
Bible — ^these  are  the  highway  ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  have  used,  and  without 
which  they  assure  us  they  would  never  have 
arrived  at  their  intimacy  with  God;  but  we 
have  to  discover  for  ourselves  how  to  pray, 
how  to  worship  helpfully  with  others,  how 
to  get  at  God's  message  for  us  through  the 
Bible.  We  must  learn  to  be  our  natural 
and  unique  selves  on  our  knees  with  God; 
our  natural  and  unique  selves  with  others 
in  social  worship,  to  which  we  bring  our 
faith  and  enthusiasm  as  sacraments  to  uplift 
our  fellow  seekers  after  Him  who  is  invis- 
ible; our  natural  and  unique  selves  with  the 
choice  religious  experiences  of  the  past  in 
the  Bible  open  before  us,  and  speaking  their 
messages  to  our  souls.  If  we  have  given  up 
forms  that  were  weights  to  us,  we  have  not 
lost  anything;  we  must  find  others  that  are 
wings,  and  seriously  set  ourselves  to  find 
them.  The  test  of  the  reality  of  our  contact 
with  God  through  any  form  is  the  lift  it 
gives  us  into  higher  and  larger  hfe.  If,  as 
Browning  says,  there  is  "a  stoop  of  the  soul 
which  in  bending  upraises  it  too,"  the  up- 


( 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    237 

raising  is  not  in  the  mere  stoop,  but  in  the 
lifting  God  to  whom  our  reverent  approach 
directly  brings  us. 

Or  take  the  responsibilities  with  which  a 
Christian  conscience  saddles  a  man — ^the 
sense  of  personal  accountability  for  the 
standards  and  morale  of  the  life  of  the 
University  to  which  we  belong,  of  indebted- 
ness to  all  the  producers  of  the  wealth  that 
makes  possible  our  enriching  and  delightful 
life  here;  our  consciousness  that  we  must 
answer  for  our  influence  over  the  men  at  our 
side,  and  give  a  reckoning  as  stewards  to 
the  wider  community  beyond  these  walls  for 
our  use  of  whatever  Yale  gives  us  for  mind 
or  character ;  our  feeling  that  we  are  charge- 
able to  God  for  our  lives,  and  must  plan 
them  from  day  to  day  here,  and  for  the 
years  ahead  of  us,  so  that  He  may  say, 
"Well  done  I" — ^this  conscientiousness  is  not 
depressing,  but  elevating.  True,  we  feel 
ourselves  under  great  pressure;  "I  must," 
we  say,  "I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 
ness"; "I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that 
sent  me,  while  it  is  day,  for  the  night 
Cometh" ;  but  the  pressure  is  a  driving  force. 
It  lifts  us  out  of  ourselves;  it  gets  us  over 


238  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

the  obstacles  of  laziness  and  diffidence  and 
cowardice;  it  gives  us  buoyancy  under  fail- 
ure and  discouragement.  The  Christian 
ideal  conscience  compels  us  to  strive  to  reach 
appears  like  a  steep  summit  up  which  we 
must  climb  with  straining  toil;  but  the 
Christian  who  is  trying  to  climb  knows  that 
there  is  an  almost  resistless  pull  in  the  ideal, 
drawing  him  and  rendering  it  easier  to  keep 
on  clambering  up,  than  to  turn  his  back  and 
take  his  way  down.  The  upward  pulling 
power  of  the  Christian  ideal  is  nothing  else 
than  the  downward  reach  and  lift  of  the 
living  God  in  Christ,  like  whom  we  feel  we 
simply  must  become. 

There  are  a  good  many  people  who 
consider  themselves  Christians  who  never 
convey  the  impression  of  being  lifted  and 
carried  along  by  a  great  upbearing  Power. 
They  are  burdened  with  something — ^with 
fear  perhaps,  fear  of  the  germs  of  disease 
about  to  infect  them,  of  overstrain  about  to 
cripple  their  nerves,  of  social  upheaval  about 
to  whelm  them  and  theirs  in  poverty;  bur- 
dened with  sorrow,  unable  to  raise  them- 
selves under  the  crushing  loneliness  that 
death  has  let  fall  upon  them;  burdened  with 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    239 

problems,  the  perplexities  in  their  own 
careers  which  cause  their  minds  to  stagger, 
the  perplexities  of  our  age  with  its  pressing 
questions  in  industry,  in  theology,  in  politics, 
in  every  phase  of  human  thought ;  burdened 
with  their  possessions,  which  impede  them 
from  devoting  themselves  to  unselfish 
careers  and  render  it  incumbent  upon  them 
to  occupy  a  fixed  social  position  in  the 
world ;  burdened  with  themselves,  oppressed 
with  the  sense  of  their  own  futility,  their 
boredness,  the.  hardness  of  their  task  of 
trying  to  amuse  themselves  and  forget  them- 
selves. A  common  phase  of  our  day  is  this 
consciousness  of  being  restive  under  some 
undefined  weight  that  leads  people  to  try  to 
throw  off  every  responsibility  as  too  heavy 
to  be  borne — civic  duties.  Church  responsi- 
bilities, family  obligations.  Life  in  a  city 
with  its  problems  and  claims  is  too  tiring, 
and  they  flee  to  the  supposedly  more  restful 
country,  where  needs  do  not  thrust  them- 
selves so  obtrusively  and  insistently  upon 
them.  It  is  all  part  of  the  lack  of  the  sense 
of  being  uphfted  and  upborne,  which  is  the 
essence  of  the  religious  experience.  To  pos- 
sess a  genuine  contact  with  God  is  to  be 


240  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

carried  by  Him  so  that  fear  and  sorrow  and 
problems  and  possessions  and  ourselves 
are  not  burdensome  because  His  arms  are 
beneath  us  and  all. 

There  are  a  good  many  people  who  would 
like  to  know  whether  it  is  possible  to  have 
such  contact  with  the  living  God.  They 
do  not  deny  His  existence,  but  they  seriously 
doubt  whether  they  have  ever  been  in  touch 
with  Him;  and  they  wish  they  knew  where 
they  could  see  any  clear  evidence  that  His 
hands  took  hold  of  them.  This  prophet,  to 
whom  God  was  the  high  and  lofty  One 
inhabiting  eternity,  would  tell  them  that  in 
every  experience  with  anything  or  anybody 
that  lifted  them,  God  was  surely  placing 
His  arms  about  them,  and  they  could 
recognize  His  divine  touch,  and,  if  they  let 
themselves  go,  they  would  be  carried. 

Here  is  a  truth  that  takes  us  off  our  feet, 
a  conviction  that  binds  us  in  its  embrace — 
that  is  God.  In  yielding  to  truth  we  are  in 
His  arms. 

Here  is  conscience — ^well,  it  often  seems 
to  do  anything  but  lift  us ;  it  knocks  us  down 
and  belabors  us,  and  leaves  us  humihated 
and  bruised  all  over  in  the  dust.    Is  not  that 


I 


RELIGION— A  LOAD  OR  A  LIFT?    241 

the  sensation  we  have  when  conscience  gets 
through  handling  us?  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  know  that  it  never  leaves  us  there. 
Every  knock-down  of  conscience  is  a  boost 
up;  it  is  the  upward  pull  of  a  higher  ideal; 
and  that  is  God,  the  righteous  God. 

Here  is  love — and  how  it  holds  a  man  up ! 
Those  who  love  us,  lift  us.  There  is  no 
genuine  love  in  all  the  world  that  does  not 
seem  to  come  to  us  from  the  heights,  to  be 
the  downward  reach  of  someone  who  would 
do  anything  to  upraise  us;  and  that  is  God, 
God  who  is  love. 

Here  is  Jesus  Christ — ^the  embodiment  of 
truth,  conscience,  love.  How  He  towers 
above  us,  so  that,  whenever  we  look  at  Him, 
we  have  to  look  up !  How  He  grasps  us,  so 
that  we  cannot  think  save  with  His  point 
of  view,  cannot  try  to  be  anjiihing  else  but 
like  Him,  cannot  get  away  from  His  love  , 
which  always  manages,  in  our  most  unbe- 
lieving moods  and  our  most  selfish  states,  to 
keep  fast  some  bit  of  our  nature !  How  He 
exalts  us  every  time  we  take  His  outlook, 
or  try  to  be  at  all  like  Him,  or  respond  to 
the  pull  of  His  love  on  our  heartstrings  I 
That  is  God,  God  coming  into  direct  contact 


242  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

with  us  through  Jesus  Christ ;  God  stooping 
to  us,  laying  hands  upon  us,  raising  us  in 
His  arms,  carrying  us  into  His  hfe. 

Those  who  give  themselves  up  to  the  Hft 
of  God  through  truth,  through  conscience, 
through  love,  and  supremely  through  Jesus 
Christ,  know  what  it  is  to  feel  themselves 
upborne.  They  are  aware  of  the  hold  the 
divine  has  on  them,  and  are  persuaded  that 
neither  death,  nor  hfe,  nor  things  present, 
nor  things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  them  from  the  love 
of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  their  Lord. 
The  eternal  God  is  their  dwelling-place,  and 
underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.  "Even 
to  old  age  I  am  He ;  and  even  to  hoar  hairs 
will  I  carry  you:  I  have  made,  and  I  will 
bear;  yea,  I  will  carry,  and  will  deliver." 


I 


XV 

THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY 

John  9:27.  Wherefore  would  ye  hear  it  again? 
would  ye  also  become  His  disciples? 

A  preacher  entering  this  pulpit,  particu- 
larly at  this  season  of  the  year  when  for  a 
number  of  you  the  college  course  is  almost 
ended,  may  well  ask,  as  he  begins  to  speak 
once  more  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
"Wherefore  would  ye  hear  it  again?" 

Most  of  us  have  listened  to  the  presenta- 
tion of  Christianity  in  home,  Sunday  school, 
Church  services,  books  and  Christian  char- 
acters since  our  earliest  childhood.  By  a 
long-established  custom  in  this  College, 
we,  its  students,  hear  some  phase  of  the 
Christian  message  told  us  from  the  Univer- 
sity pulpit  every  Sunday  throughout  our 
course.  A  preacher  may  try  to  whet  his 
hearers'  interest  by  exploring  some  out-of- 
the-way  nook  or  corner  of  the  Bible,  or  by 
selecting  an  odd  text  which  will  rouse  their 
curiosity,  or  by  emphasizing  some  theologi- 
cal novelty  brought  into  being  by  an  advance 


244  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

in  our  world's  thought;  but  the  good  news 
that  to  obey  Jesus  Christ  is,  hke  the  man 
in  the  familiar  story  read  a  moment  ago, 
to  be  made  to  see — ^to  live  in  a  world  where 
the  light  of  God's  face  falls  on  and  alters 
and  beautifies  everything — that  cannot  be 
news  to  any  man  here;  it  is  something  to 
which  we  have  listened  a  thousand  times. 
What  possible  good  will  it  do  us  to  hear  it 
repeated?  Have  we  the  slightest  intention 
of  becoming  different  men  because  of  it,  of 
allowing  Christ  to  have  the  sole  and  supreme 
control  of  our  lives?  Is  this  morning's 
service  to  be  just  a  conventional  exercise 
through  which  we  must  go,  you  and  I?  Or 
granting  that  the  purpose  of  the  University 
in  bringing  us  here  is  sincere,  that  we  are 
dealing  with  something  that  is  overwhelm- 
ingly real,  life's  most  momentous  interest  to 
some  of  us,  is  it  conceivable  that  its  telling 
is  far  more  than  a  perfunctory  usage? 
"Wherefore  would  ye  hear  it  again?  would 
ye  also  become  His  disciples?" 

There  are  several  reasons  which  hinder 
men  today  from  yielding  to  the  persuasive 
appeal  of  the  personality  of  Jesus.  One  of 
these  is  the  mental  bewilderment  in  which 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  245 

they  find  themselves  when  they  ask  what  is 
involved  in  becoming  a  Christian.  There 
are  intellectual  problems:  How  am  I  to 
think  of  God,  of  Christ,  of  the  Bible,  or 
prayer,  of  suffering,  of  death,  of  the  mystery 
beyond?  We  appreciate  that  we  live  in  a 
world  of  changing  opinions,  that  the  ideas 
taught  us  on  these  subjects  and  held  by  a 
great  many  good  people  whom  we  know, 
do  not  seem  to  us  mentally  convincing. 
How  are  we  to  arrive  at  satisfactory  con- 
victions of  our  own?  There  are  such  minor, 
but  still  practical,  questions  as,  What  does 
loyalty  to  Christ  demand  of  me  in  my  use 
of  Sunday,  and  in  my  attitude  to  a  lot  of 
personal  problems  of  a  similar  sort?  On 
what  basis  am  I  to  arrive  at  my  decisions? 
There  are  the  much  more  fundamental  and 
more  complicated  social  perplexities.  In 
view  of  Jesus'  ideal  of  universal  brother- 
hood, His  teaching  regarding  justice  and 
self-sacrifice,  how  should  I  order  my 
methods  of  earning  and  spending  money, 
what  position  must  I  take  towards  questions 
of  public  policy  on  economic  lines,  how  far 
can  I  accept  the  ideals  of  my  parents,  con- 
form to  the  customs  of  the  particular  set  of 


246  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

people  with  whom  I  am  thrown,  be  in 
harmony  with  the  ways  of  thinking  and 
hving  that  prevail,  for  instance,  here  at 
Yale?  Conscientious  persons,  who  are  not 
in  the  habit  of  promising  without  perform- 
ing, hesitate  to  commit  themselves  to  Christ, 
even  by  registering  a  secret  vow,  until  they 
are  clear  to  what  they  will  be  committed. 
We  may  feel  the  spell  of  Christ  upon  us, 
we  may  let  His  Spirit  shape  our  ideals  at  a 
number  of  points,  but  we  shrink  from  giving 
Him  full  sway,  because  we  do  not  know 
where  that  will  take  us. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  there  is  no  short  cut 
out  of  this  mental  bewilderment.  Nobody 
on  earth  can  tell  his  neighbor  what  he  ought 
to  think.  To  follow  Christ  is  to  be  con- 
tinually thinking  with  a  mind  ready  to  revise 
all  previous  conclusions.  But  that  is  not  to 
say  that  we  are  left  solely  to  our  own  intelli- 
gences. Men  who  obey  Christ  find  His 
Spirit  formed  in  them,  and  that  Spirit  is 
an  unerring  Guide.  Read  under  the  direc- 
tion of  that  Spirit,  the  Bible  yields  us  a  few 
great  convictions  and  determining  prin- 
ciples that  serve  for  all  practical  purposes 
to  keep  us  right.    We  are  not  relieved  of 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  247 

thinking  for  ourselves.  Xo  one  can  hand 
us  some  ready-made  beliefs  or  some  univer- 
sally applicable  rules  of  conduct.  We  have 
got  to  ask  ourselves  constantly :  What  is  the 
most  Christlike  thought  I  can  hold  of  God, 
of  life,  of  pain,  of  destiny?  What  is  the 
most  Christlike  use  I  can  make  of  means, 
education,  friendship?  What  is  the  most 
Christhke  solution  I  can  see  for  any  social 
problem  or  political  question?  There  is  no 
guarantee  against  our  making  mistakes,  no 
assurance  that  what  appears  most  Christ- 
like today  may  not  be  superseded  by  some- 
thing that  seems  more  Christlike  tomorrow; 
but  no  man  who  conscientiously  follows  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  as  that  Spirit  is  breathed 
on  him  from  the  New  Testament  pages,  can 
be  seriously  in  the  wrong.  And  yet  it  is  not 
possible  to  see  far  when  we  commit  ourselves 
to  Christ.  We  must  regard  Jesus  as  suffi- 
ciently trustworthy  to  be  willing  to  go  any 
lengths  to  which  His  Spirit  may  lead  us, 
relying  on  the  promise,  "He  that  foUoweth 
Me  shall  not  walk  in  the  darkness,  but  shall 
have  the  light  of  life." 

Another   deterrent   is    the   circumstance 
that  the  usual  expressions  of  religion  bore 


248  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

some  men.  They  may  find  Christ  gripping 
their  consciences,  but  they  are  frank  to 
admit  that  they  have  no  relish  for  Bible 
reading,  prayer,  a  Church  service,  or  for  the 
meetings  and  work  of  the  Christian  Asso- 
ciation. They  recognize  that  other  men 
seem  to  have  a  taste  for  these  things,  but 
they  find  in  themselves  no  enthusiasm  for 
them,  and  often  a  distinct  repugnance. 

It  is  easy  to  say  that  a  man  with  such 
feelings  cannot  have  his  heart  in  the  right 
place  towards  Christ  Himself;  and  that  is 
partially  true.  Genuine  allegiance  to  Christ 
awakens  an  interest  in  the  Bible,  a  zest  for 
prayer,  a  sense  of  the  value  of  common 
worship,  and  a  desire  to  push  the  aggressive 
Christian  propaganda,  here  and  in  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  But  it  is  also  true  that  a  man 
may  be  loyal  to  Jesus  and  be  widely  out  of 
sympathy  with  a  great  deal  that  other  Chris- 
tians eagerly  do  in  His  name.  Tempera- 
ments and  tastes  are  so  different  that  none  of 
us  can  prescribe  to  another  the  form  in  which 
his  religious  zeal  should  express  itself.  A 
man  must  be  on  his  guard  lest  he  miss  some- 
thing which  the  experience  of  the  past  or  of 
the  great  mass  of  living  Christians   may 


I 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  249 

be  able  to  contribute.  He  must  beware 
of  permitting  his  mood  or  prejudice  or 
thoughtlessness  to  determine  him,  instead 
of  conviction  and  judgment.  If  Christian- 
ity is  to  be  socially  effective  it  must  be 
backed  by  men  who  are  not  free  lances  but 
are  willing  to  acconmiodate  themselves  to 
the  Christian  Church;  and  that  today  ought, 
in  some  of  its  many  communions,  to  furnish 
a  place  for  every  Christian.  The  point  is 
that,  if  not  in  the  more  common  and  usual 
ways,  then  in  some  other,  a  Christian  must 
allow  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  lead  him  so  to 
worship  and  work  that  his  personality  is 
most  spiritually  enriched  and  most  usefully 
invested  for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

But  we  have  dwelt  over  long  on  these 
first  two  deterrents  from  full  commitment 
to  Christ.  It  is  doubtful  whether  mental 
perplexity  or  distaste  for  the  usual  religious 
practices  and  institutions  holds  any  sincere 
man  back.  When  his  heart  goes  out  to 
Christ,  he  is  ready  to  use  his  head  and  think 
out  enough  to  hve  and  work  by,  and  to 
adjust  himself  to  be  helped  and  used  in  some 
of  the  fairly  varied  Church  activities  of  our 
day.    But  there  are  more  serious  hindrances. 


260  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

One  is  a  lack  of  interest  in  that  which 
interests  Jesus  Christ.  However  difficult 
it  may  be  to  interpret  some  of  His  sayings, 
that  on  which  His  heart  was  set  is  suffi- 
ciently plain.  Do  we  share  His  wishes? 
What  are  the  things  about  which  we  really 
care?  What  occupies  our  thought?  On 
what  would  we  rather  spend  our  money? 
What  item  in  the  newspaper  do  we  look  for 
most  eagerly  and  why?  What  is  the  point 
of  view  we  find  ourselves  taking  on  pubhc 
questions  and  what  sort  of  reasons  prompt 
us  to  take  it?  What  kind  of  conversation 
do  we  prick  up  our  ears  to  listen  to  and  find 
it  easiest  to  join  in?  If  we  are  compelled 
to  admit  that  we  are  self-centred,  that  our 
personal  convenience  or  comfort  controls 
our  views,  that  we  do  not  get  up  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  that  which  does  not  seem  to 
promise  us  some  immediate  advantage  or 
pleasure,  that  we  are  very  much  afraid  of 
anything  that  might  disturb  our  present 
fairly  easy  manner  of  life  and  make  us 
do  hard  things,  of  what  use  is  it  to  sit  and 
listen  to  One  who  has  turned  the  world 
upside  down,  whenever  He  has  been  taken 
seriously,  and  who  assured  His  followers 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  251 

that  their  first  obligation  would  be  to  deny 
themselves  and  take  up  a  cross?  "Where- 
fore would  ye  hear  it  again?  would  ye  also 
become  His  disciples?" 

Another  obstacle  is  conventionality.  Most 
of  us  do  not  wish  to  be  thought  odd.  The 
result  is  that  we  are  led  unthinking  to  fall 
in  with  the  ways  and  usages  of  the  particular 
group  of  men  with  whom  we  are  thrown; 
or,  if  we  think  for  ourselves  and  conscien- 
tiously question  whether  it  is  right  to  do  as 
the  rest,  we  are  very  ingenious  in  inventing 
compromises  that  enable  us  to  appear  a 
httle  less  evil  and  yet  avoid  becoming 
noticeably  different. 

Further,  a  man  at  college,  particularly 
by  his  senior  year,  has  created  a  tradition 
for  himself,  with  which  it  is  not  easy  for 
him  to  break.  If  one  who  for  nearly  four 
years  has  never  shown  any  particular  reli- 
gious interest,  has  never  identified  himself 
with  the  positive  Christian  forces  of  the 
University,  has  never  let  his  classmates  feel 
that  he  was  throwing  his  influence,  whatever 
it  may  amount  to,  on  the  side  of  Christ, 
should  suddenly  make  himself  felt  and 
known  as  a  pronounced  and  earnest  sharer 


252  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

of  the  faith  and  purpose  of  Jesus,  it  would 
attract  attention.  Perhaps  the  dehghted 
comment  of  some  of  the  godly  would  be  as 
trying  as  the  bantering  remarks  of  the 
undevout.  But  in  any  case  it  would  make 
a  man  slightly  conspicuous  and  place  him 
in  an  unusual  position. 

Oddity  has  always  been  an  essential  mark 
of  Christianity.  Salt,  light,  leaven,  must  be 
different  from  the  mass  they  season,  illu- 
minate, transform.  The  man  who  has  not 
the  courage  to  be  different,  to  break  with  his 
own  past  reputation,  and  the  independence 
to  take  his  own  place  in  fidelity  to  Christ, 
irrespective  of  what  anybody  or  everybody 
may  think  or  say,  need  not  listen  to  a  mes- 
sage from  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  "Wherefore 
would  ye  hear  it  again?  would  ye  also 
become  His  disciples?" 

But  the  most  serious  deterrent  is  unwill- 
ingness to  sacrifice.  Some  of  us  are  per- 
fectly aware  of  certain  things  we  should 
have  to  stop  if  we  actually  gave  Christ  the 
rule  of  our  lives,  and  we  do  not  want  to  stop 
them.  There  are  changes,  decided  changes, 
we  should  be  compelled  to  make  in  our 
manner  of  life  and  it  would  be  inconvenient 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  253 

to  make  them.  There  would  have  to  be  a 
readjustment  of  our  interests,  sympathies, 
expenditures,  plans ;  and  we  are  not  disposed 
to  consider  a  radical,  because  Christlike, 
readjustment.  We  should  have  to  take  into 
consideration  a  great  many  people,  about 
whom  we  do  not  now  bother  ourselves;  to 
carry  around  a  much  more  sensitive  and 
insistent  social  conscience;  to  let  our  con- 
victions find  a  tongue  more  frequently;  to 
shoulder  responsibilities  we  have  been 
calmly  leaving  on  other  backs;  to  lift  our 
friendships  to  a  different  level;  to  put  reli- 
gious inspiration  unostentatiously  and  very 
naturally  into  our  contacts  with  lives  devoid 
of  that  element;  in  short,  thoughtfully  and 
thoroughly  to  go  over  everything  we  do,  or 
feel  we  might  do,  and  allow  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  to  settle  how  we  shall  hve,  work,  play, 
spend,  worship.  It  will  be  a  series  of 
Gethsemanes  in  which  we  bring  ourselves 
to  say,  "Not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt." 
They  will  not  necessarily  be  a  series  of  sad 
occurrences;  there  is  a  deep  satisfaction  in 
genuine  self-sacrifice  for  the  best  of  all 
causes  under  the  Best  of  all  masters  to  which 
no  other  joy  is  comparable;  but  frankly, 


254  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

they  will  be  hard.  There  is  nothing  under 
the  sun  harder  than  to  be  an  intelligent  and 
consistent  follower  of  Jesus.  How  can  it 
be  otherwise  when  we  remember  who  Jesus 
is,  and  recall  that  He  went  up  to  Calvary? 
Unless  we  are  ready  to  attempt  and  re- 
attempt  the  difficult,  why  listen  to  the 
Crucified  and  His  message?  "Wherefore 
would  ye  hear  it  again?  would  ye  also 
become  His  disciples?" 

There  has  not  been  a  thought  in  this 
sermon  that  can  be  labelled  new.  We  can 
recall  something  exceedingly  like  it  in  the 
first  sermon  we  remember  hearing,  and  cer- 
tainly the  point  of  it  is  identical  with  that 
of  every  Christian  sermon  from  this  or  any 
pulpit.  What  is  there  new  that  we  need 
to  hear?  What  is  there  new  that  we  do  not 
need  to  be  and  to  do? 

Another  college  year,  for  some  here  their 
last  in  this  place,  is  rapidly  ending.  Is  it 
going  to  leave  many  of  us  in  the  same  non- 
committal attitude  towards  that  which  is 
most  fundamental — religion?  And  that 
means  for  us  not  our  attitude  towards  the 
faith  of  Mohammed  or  the  practice  of 
Buddha,  but  towards  the  convictions  and 


THE  OLD,  OLD  STORY  255 

purpose  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  has  made  His 
appeal  to  us  over  and  over.  There  was 
something  mysteriously  attractive  in  His 
Figure  as  we  saw  it  through  the  stories  and 
hymns  and  prayers  of  our  earliest  child- 
hood. There  was  a  fascination  for  us  about 
Him  when  we  looked  at  Him  in  boyhood 
and  saw  Him  representing  our  ideals  of 
truth,  honor,  courage,  devotion.  Our  years 
here,  both  in  the  experiences  of  this  place 
and  in  the  parallel  experiences  of  our  homes 
and  outside  interests,  have  brought  their 
appeals.  One  cannot  mention  all  the  Chris- 
tian persuasions  that  have  come  to  us 
through  some  telling  book;  through  the  ifirst 
pressure  of  responsibility  convincing  us  of 
the  need  of  an  unseen  Ally;  in  some  enrich- 
ing friendship  that  opened  up  stores  within 
ourselves  we  had  not  suspected,  and  took 
life  down  to  a  deeper  level  than  it  had 
touched  before;  in  the  face  of  some  great 
human  need  when  we  were  forced  to  search 
ourselves  and  admit  our  inability  to  meet 
it ;  in  the  hour  when  the  shadow  of  death  fell 
on  us  and  a  life  we  prized  went  out  beyond 
the  reach  of  anything  but  faith;  in  some 
frank    and    appealing    statement    of    who 


256  UNIVERSITY  SERMONS 

Christ  is,  what  He  stands  for,  what  He  asks 
of  us;  in  some  more  convincing  life  where 
His  Spirit  was  plainly  dominant.  Is  there 
any  necessity  for  Christ  to  bring  additional 
persuasions?  What  more  can  there  be? 
"What  more  can  He  say  than  to  you  He 
hath  said?"  Or  why  must  He  repeat  to  us 
what  we  have  heard  so  often?  "Wherefore 
would  ye  hear  it  again?  would  ye  also 
become  His  disciples?" 


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